Mudryk for €100m and seven signings that inflated the transfer market

Analysis

FT Desk

The football transfer market has got out of hand in recent years.

While the rest of the developed world is going through a cost of living crisis that has been unprecedented in the twenty-first century, soccer continues to operate in its own bubble.

Every single year, the Premier League breaks record after record when it comes to transfer spending.

And one of the biggest reasons for this - along with the astronomical TV contracts - is down to the inflated nature of the transfer market.

There were a number of inflated transfer fees in recent years that have resulted in ballooning the prices of all subsequent deals.

In this piece, we will look at seven inflated transfers that took us to where we are now.

Neymar: €222m (Barcelona to PSG - 2017)

It was Neymar’s world record move from Barcelona to PSG in the summer of 2017 which instantly inflated the transfer market to the point of no return.

Neymar more than doubled the global transfer record overnight and subsequently every other major deal that followed was blown way out of proportion.

Every club was charged much more than they would have been before Neymar’s move - and this was best exemplified by Barca’s business to replace the Brazilian.

Barcelona paid way over the odds to bring in Coutinho for €145m from Liverpool and Ousmane Dembele for €105m from Borussia Dortmund.

Harry Maguire: €87m (Leicester to Man Utd – 2019

Harry Maguire became the most expensive defender of all-time when he joined Manchester United in 2019, showcasing just how crazy the market had become for a player who had been a moderate success at Leicester City.

United beat their rivals Manchester City to Maguire’s signing, with Pep Guardiola seemingly unwilling to spend such an amount on the England international.

Maguire has since fallen out of favour at United and the club are likely to take a substantial loss on a player who has failed to live up to the pressure of such a monumental price tag.

Jack Grealish: €118m (Aston Villa to Man City - 2021)

The so-called ‘English tax’, in which Premier League clubs are automatically charged more when buying players than teams from other nations, hit new levels after this transfer.

Jack Grealish was an exceptionally gifted player who had enjoyed two excellent seasons in the Premier League with Aston Villa from 2019 to 2021, but the idea he was worth even close to the €118m paid for him by Man City was a joke.

And so it has proved as Grealish has struggled badly in the 18 months since to live up to his pricetag and is already being linked with a move away from City.

The biggest negative from his transfer is that every English club is now being charged not only an ‘English tax’ but also a ‘Grealish tax’.

The attitude from clubs is that ‘If Grealish is worth €118m, then so is our player’. This was seen in 2023 when Shakhtar Donetsk publicly stated that they expected a fee “close to Grealish’s amount” for Mykhailo Mudryk. They eventually earned €100m.

Antony: €100m (Ajax to Man Utd – 2022)

Like Grealish, the deal that took Antony to Manchester United in 2022 was also namedropped by Shakhtar as a barometer for how much they would demand for their star talent.

Antony cost United €100m after they waited until the last moments of the summer to make their move for the Ajax man, having stalled on closing a deal for a significantly cheaper amount earlier in the window.

The Dutch side took advantage of the delay and forced United into overpaying for a player who had played just two seasons in the Netherlands and scored a modest 18 goals, but who was now their second-most expensive signing of all time.

Darwin Nunez: €100m (Benfica to Liverpool – 2022)

Signing a relatively-unproven forward for €100m appears to be the latest trend in English football and Liverpool were one of the teams who made such a move when they paid that amount for Darwin Nunez.

The Uruguayan had enjoyed a breakout season for Benfica, scoring 26 times in 28 games, prompting the Reds to splash the cash to sign one of the few strikers on the market at the time.

The deal saw Benfica quadruple the €24m they had paid for Nunez two years earlier and highlighted how European sides would use Premier League sides to draw a quick profit for a player’s dominance in a less-intensive division.

Paul Pogba: €105m (Juventus to Man Utd – 2016

Manchester United's blockbuster transfer to bring Paul Pogba back to the club from Juventus in 2016 cost the club a world-record €105m in a deal which also netted the midfielder's agent, Mino Raiola, a reported €27m.

Pogba's transfer was the first time the €100m barrier had definitively been broken by a club (with the previous record, Gareth Bale's move to Real Madrid, having various reported figures below and above the milestone.)

Although Pogba was highly-rated, the French international was not a proven goalscorer like Bale or Ronaldo and his move to United paved the way for more stars to be held to the €100m benchmark.

The deal also emphasised the 'English tax' which saw European sides charging Premier League teams a premium for their players, knowing that clubs like United had shown they could afford the eyewatering fees for continental talent.

Mykhailo Mudryk: €100m (Shakhtar to Chelsea - 2023)

There is no denying that Mykhailo Mudryk is an electric talent, a winger blessed with blistering pace and silky dribbling. His former Shakhtar coach Roberto De Zerbi has even tipped him as a future Ballon d’Or winner.

But despite his potential, it is hard to understand how a €100m transfer fee can be justified for the 21-year-old.

Mudryk has scored just 12 club goals in his career and played only 65 times. He has been capped eight times by Ukraine and has yet to score for his country.

These are not numbers and longevity of an established player that would usually warrant such a high fee.

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FT Desk

FootballTransfers' desk

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