Upon hearing the news that Neymar; Barcelona forward, had been given permission to leave training from the Catalan club, a planet’s jaw dropped in tandem. A touted figure just shy of £200m, with PSG earmarked as his expected future employers.
To contextualise: two and a half times the fee Real Madrid paid for Cristiano Ronaldo and over double that of Manchester United’s expenditure on the homecoming of £89m Paul Pogba.
£198m is indisputably a momentous sum of money for an individual to command – though in the eyes of many; including Jose Mourinho, Neymar is worthy of such a fee.
“Expensive are the ones who get into a certain level without a certain quality. For £200m, I don’t think [Neymar] is expensive.
“I think he’s expensive in the fact that now you are going to have more players at £100m, you are going have more players at £80m and more players at £60m. And I think that’s the problem.”
Jose Mourinho, August 2017
Mourinho’s comments are indicative of a man who knows what he’s talking about. The precise implications of Neymar’s transfer are difficult to pinpoint, though it can be expected that a market already considered to be grossly financially lucrative is set to alter – and that alteration can only be expected to be upwards.
This transfer window alone, the £30m figure has become a regularity. Michael Keane, Jordan Pickford, Victor Lindelof, Mo Salah, Danilo, the list goes on. The transfer window prior to Neymar’s proposed £198m PSG transfer had moved towards lunacy – though the world-record transfer fee is about to be more than doubled. If we were entering the realms of ridicule prior to Neymar’s world-record move, then after it? Lunacy and barbarism rolled into one don’t quite do justice to just how absurd this transfer really is – though could PSG and their wealthy Qatarian owners care less?
No. They really couldn’t. Bank-rolled by Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), Nasser Al-Khelaifi and his band of brothers are in dreamland. A World Cup, a world-record transfer, Qatar is beginning to make a name for itself, though the recurrence of ‘world’ in these statements is not just a coincidence. QSI have been hurt by the re-emergence of Monaco and their consequent dethroning as Ligue 1 Champions, they are out to make a serious statement of intent – the £198m acquisition of one of footballs most marketable assets does just that and more. Qatar is rather sickeningly beginning to make a global name for itself, though as has been proven with the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and even in recent years Manchester United, money talks, and even more money talks louder.
The Premier League and its member clubs are unlikely to be hugely concerned by Neymar’s transfer, but the wider implications for the market will be raising eyebrows. I recall in the summer of 2012 seeing a £32m fee brandished for then Lille star Eden Hazard, £32m enough of a shock for me to consider Hazard as over-priced. Of course the market has since altered significantly, but the switch from £32m being a rarity to a regularity is startling to say the least.
Inevitably critics will cry loudly as will those outside of the game. “No-one in any profession could be worth £200m!” bellowed ‘Mark’, a self-proclaimed 33 year-old Newcastle United fan (according to his Twitter bio), and do you know what, Mark’s probably right. Neymar’s not worth £198m, but in the eyes of QSI, PSG and Nasser Al-Khelaifi in their quest to assert footballing and financial dominance over a planet, he’s worth every last penny.
Written by Tom Newman.
