With the sale of Philipe Coutinho last week, moving from Liverpool to Barcelona,  for the second highest fee ever, a mere figure of £106 million, the issue of obscene transfer prices and skyrocketing wages again raises its ugly head. The total expenditure of the biggest leagues has increased, having doubled in the last five years, as football continues to become one of the most popular industries in the world.

There is strong argument to suggest that such investment is ruining the game so many love, as tensions over enormous wages and deals begin to manifest themselves onto the pitch more  than ever before as players refuse to play due to conflict over wages. Of course such controversy has plagued the game since its professionalization in 1893; however it is perhaps in the last couple of decades that the issue has become more pronounced, as emphasis shifts towards the economic and business side of the game. Furthermore the stand offs created by players demanding higher and higher wages or the ability for players to blackmail a club into releasing them for obscene prices, is concerning for football fans as well as those involved in the industry as it causes money to become the priority, in favour of the game itself.

Coutinho’s sale represents the continuity of this growth in economic focus. It is a transfer separate to the record breaking window at the start of the 2017/18 season and so emphasises how there is no realistic cap on the money being spent on players, as the financial fair play regulations are now easily bypassed. Huge transfer requests are now being met as players of average quality begin to go for prices around £30 or 40 million, whilst those of exceptional ability, or even those now classed as having the potential for extraordinary skill as was the case with 20 year old Frenchman Ousmane Dembele, are being bought for prices in excess of £100 million.

In some ways the economic growth we have witnessed over the last decade is an inevitable part of any industry. There was the same outrage when Nottingham Forest paid the first £1 million transfer in 1979, or when Newcastle broke the record transfer fee to pay £15 million for Alan Shearer in 1996. The worry at the current situation is at just how much it will increase in the coming years, having hit and now easily surpassed the outrageous. As parts of the world experience extreme poverty, such as Malawi with a GDP of around £3.8 billion, paying the £106 million for a footballer feels disrespectful, more so now than ever before, as football is no longer able to hide behind its excuse that this is the price for entertainment.

We can’t predict where the industry will go from here. Will the market prices suddenly decline due to the sheer amount of money being placed into it, or continue its trajectory of excess?

By Benjamin Klauber-Griffiths

JCoSS