It may appear that the Premier League has not been badly affected by the worldwide financial crisis with huge amounts of money still being spent on players throughout the division. In just the current transfer window over £300m has been spent on new players but this year there is one difference. The majority of the big signings have been dominated by young, talented players who have potential resale value. I think this is the result of the difficult financial times we are facing with clubs looking to get more value out of potential signings.
At Liverpool, Director of Football, Damien Comolli, who was recruited from St Eitenne, has brought with him a modus operandi of buying young talent to ensure maximum resale value when/if they are sold on. This is part of looking at cost effective options in a tough financial tiems that also adheres to the owner’s long term plans. When Comolli was working at Tottenham just some of the players he signed for the club included Gareth Bale, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Luka Modric and Roman Pavlychenko as well as bringing last season’s Premier League top goal scorer Dimitar Berbatov to English football. He has now brought this policy to Anfield and although the club may have paid over the odds for this young English talent, in the future they will surely bear the fruits of his labour.
There is evidence of a similar transfer policy now in place at Manchester United with this summer’s signings including Phil Jones, 19, David De Gea, 20 and the oldest being Ashley Young at 26. They now have a policy of signing players under 26 who will have a significant resale value, the days of spending big money on older players has gone at Old Trafford, it is now all about developing youth players who fit the criteria with resale value.
This policy is being adopted throughout the Premier League as Newcastle owner Mike Ashley has a blueprint which demands that Alan Pardew only signs cheaply available players who are under 25-years old and have a large potential resale value. At Arsenal, Arsene Wenger has been criticised for signing players with potential but he is sticking to his mandate of brining in players with potential value and even Chelseaare getting in on the act signing Juan Mata, 23, Oriol Romeu, 19, Romelu Lukaku, 18 this summer. All players with bright future ahead of them so Chelsea are likely to recoup the fees when the move on.
I think we have now seen the end of big wages and relatively high fees for players in their late 20s and early 30s especially at the top clubs in Premier League. With every transfer each club also take the possible resell value into account when giving a current value to a player. Who would have thought Jordan Henderson was worth £20m but with a high chance of a bigger re-sell value, it actually makes good business sense especially with the home-grown player rule.
The current transfer market is all about finding long term value and the resale value of a current signing is a vital part of this to secure the long term future of the clubs while still guaranteeing success on the pitch.
Written by Aidan McCartney for FootballFancast.com. Follow me on twitter @aidanmccartney for more football discussion and debate
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