The English player premium is still alive and well. It's a documented fact that if you buy English, or even British, you're going to end up paying over the odds. It's another example of rip of Britain, and so far it's having a cracking summer. Already we've seen Adam Lallana move to Liverpool for £26m, Luke Shaw to Manchester Utd for £30m and Calum Chambers head to Arsenal for £16m. Three English players, all conincidentaly from Southampton, and all very expensive in terms of the global market. |
But these aren't ordinary caps......no.......these are England caps. 12 of them. More caps than can be counted on two whole hands, and that's why their transfer fees are so high. It's not direclty linked to ability, but the country they play for.
Not convinced? Well for a couple of million more you could've had Fabregas rather than Lallana. That's a World and European Cup (twice) winner, with pretty much every trophey going in his cabinet.............or Lallana who has dust gathering on his prize shelf which holds league one and Championship runners up medals.
Instead of Shaw, Filipe Luis moved to Chelsea for half the price and that's off the back of winning La Liga and reaching the Champions League final with Athletico Madrid last season. Still too dear? Well Marcos Rojo (the Argentine World Cup runner up) looks to be moving for around £8m this summer and is hardly aged at 24,
Of course the homegrown rules play a part, as does marketing, but all it boils down to is the dearth of top English players. The few there are, therefore, go for a massive mark up. Maybe if a few of them went abroad it'd free up some places for young English players and bring the price down, but it's rare to see an Englishman footballer go abroad for anything other than an away fixture or a holiday.
The English player premium is, of course, not a new thing, you only need go back a few years to see such other over priced players as; Andy Carroll, Stuart Downing, Ashley Young and David Bentley.
Now you might be thinking that those players represented a gamble, as all transfers do, but that their prices at the time reflected the market and their abilities. Well to counter that argument, let's compare some of the top English transfers paid, and the other players that moved around the same time........but didn't have an English premium on them.
I really hope Lallana, Shaw and Chambers do brilliantly at Liverpool, Manchester Utd and Arsenal respectively, but I also feel for them. A good value transfer involving an English player is a rare thing and they are now saddled with price tags they haven't really earnt in terms of global football.
Sure they'll be some people that will disagree my thoughts and conclusions, so feel free to add a comment if you want to suggest someone I've missed off the list, or if you want to start a discussion about English player premium flops.
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