Next £100 million footballer - Phil Neville? (Money in Football)

Member Name: JRW

Product:	Money in Football
Date:	15/07/00 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good player

Disadvantages: A good player

So yet another football transfer record has been broken with the sale of Hernan Crespo to Lazio by Parma.

Crespo, to be fair, has hardly set the world alight with his play though he is a good player - which could explain why Lazio have decided to pay £35 million for this Argentine fellow.

£35 million sounds a hell of a lot of money - even in today's "advanced game". What next - the first £100 million pound player? It seems as though our beautful game has finally lost its head. How can a player, who is not even a regular in his national team, warrant this sort of money? Who does?

I could easily think of five strikers better than Crespo whom I bet could be bought, and have change, from that huge sum. Batistuta, Shevschenko, Salas, Kluivert and Henry are all world-class players.

When I first saw the headlines of the transfer my immediate reaction was one of humour. £35 million in cash - you can not be serious!, as one tennis player once said. However, when yu actually read the article it seems as though the player exchanges involved in the deal have been somewhat overestimated.

Now, let's be right, Almeida and Conceicao are no donkeys. However, if I was asked to put a valuation on their heads then it would certainly not be £14 million and £10 million, respectively. I would probably pay £10 million for the pair of them - and that's if I had to.

Supply and demand is the name of the game and it seems that if Lazio want to pay a large sum for a "good" striker then that's their business. If Lazio want to pay £20 million for Phil Neville (I wish) then that again is their business. A player's value is only as big as clubs are prepared to pay. However, it has to be queried as to whether somebody, somehow, can sort this daft situation out.

10000000000000000000000000000000000-1 for Phil Neville being the next £100 million footballer. Well, they are still tall odds!

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