This is part of a series of articles examining the impact of the five most expensive footballers. For an overview of the rules guiding this (unscientific) study and the players being examined, please see the introductory article.
“Does spending large amounts of money translate to success on the pitch?” That question has been the guiding light for this entire article series.
The approach we took was to examine the most expensive players in football history. This approach has its downsides:
- As mentioned at the outset, this approach favours recent transfers.
Consider: The “oldest” transfer we’ve looked at was that of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid in 2009, a mere 15 years ago. For a sport whose modern history goes back more than 150 years, a 15-year period ignores decades of sporting achievements.
For further emphasis: In a sport where players typically retire from the professional game between the ages of 31 and 35, none of the players examined in this article series have retired. - This approach favours attacking players.
Consider: Out of the five players we’ve looked at, Ronaldo, Lukaku and Morata are primarily centre-forwards (strikers). Neymar and Dembélé are primarily left and right wingers respectively. Obviously, there are other positions apart from just attacking roles, so this approach does them a disservice. After all, a good midfield provides a platform for forwards to shine. And a forward’s goalscoring exploits are all for naught if the defenders and goalkeeper don’t do their job and keep the opposition at bay. - This approach only examines player performance in the domestic league. Other competitions where the player may have featured in are merely touched on, and only when it’s relevant to the player’s transfer or was one of the competitons won. This leaves out a sizeable number of games where the player may have scored and/or assisted.
Consider: During the 2012/13 season, Chelsea played 69 matches. If we were to look at just the league matches played during that season, we would end up leaving out 31 matches, almost an entire league season in itself.
So, what have the numbers shown us? Does more money mean more success? The answer is, it depends.
In cases where there was something of a plan, the transfers did prove to be successful.
Neymar’s transfer to Barcelona, Ronaldo’s transfer to Real Madrid and Lukaku’s transfer to Inter Milan were cases where a player was brought in with a semblance of a plan. And in all three cases, the transfer proved to be successful in footballing terms.But there were also cases of transfers taking place as a way of clubs trying to keep up with the Joneses, as it were.
Neymar’s transfer to Paris Saint-Germain and Ronaldo’s transfer to Juventus happened mainly because the decision-makers at the respective clubs hoped that these players would help the teams kick on and translate domestic dominance into success in Europe. In both cases, there was success. However, there was also disappointment, buyer’s remorse almost, that there was no European success.And then we have cases where there either was no plan or the plan was not given time to bear fruit.
In all of these cases, the transfers proved to be a waste of money. A waste that the clubs might still be paying for, like in the case of Lukaku to Chelsea.
To conclude, it seems, therefore, that if there’s a solid reason and proper planning, the higher the transfer outlay, the more likely a club is to be successful. Unless that club is Barcelona. Or Chelsea.
P.S.: I know I said that last part in jest but, barring Neymar’s move, many of Barcelona’s big money transfers just do not work out. In addition to Dembélé’s transfer, two recent examples are:
- Philippe Coutinho: €135m in 2017. (No longer at the club; left for €20m.)
- Antoine Griezmann: €120m in 2019. (No longer at the club; left for €22m.)
And that’s it. That’s the end of this long-running article series. If you’ve read it all in one go, I admire the effort.
Now I need to figure out what comes next in the Fun With Numbers series.
Until the next one.