18 Jun 2026 22:27:15
So Leipzig have rejected our £87m package and are holding out for £104m. Is he worth that amount?
18 Jun 2026 23:11:31
No, I honestly don't think that he is KP.
18 Jun 2026 23:13:35
Keegan, let the process play out. Do you take the very first offer you get when selling your home or car? Please, relax cos this will be a pretty long process.
18 Jun 2026 23:18:30
I don't think any player is worth more than £1m personally. But it's up to the club to spend what they think they need.
Don't forget we are saving a chunk on Salah's wages and we can amortise payments, so it won't be as much of a hit as you think.
18 Jun 2026 23:26:11
Only time will tell really... it's a huge outlay, but something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So, if the powers that be think it makes financial sense, who are we to argue. It's a huge gamble at that age, but if he fulfils, potentially, then he'll pay it back 10fold.
19 Jun 2026 00:03:16
I love it when we get a bargain.
I love it when we get a promising player out of the blue.
I don't care two hoots whether any other players we buy cost £10m or £200m - I trust our bean counters to make sure we don't go bust, and I care about the tune the gaffer can get out of the players he has.
19 Jun 2026 03:21:34
Even in today's market, over 100 million pounds for a teenager who hasn't shown anything other than potential is over-priced.
For context, CR7's transfer fee to Manchester United, when adjusted for inflation, is around 30 mil pounds today.
So I think it is over-priced.
Does that mean we shouldn't pay it?
Well, that depends on more than one factor - is he the player we want? Do we believe his delivery over a 4-5 year contract will return what we pay for him? Do we have the money this transfer window to do it without impeding our other priorities?
Assuming all those fall in favour of a signing, then the answer suddenly becomes no, he isn't over-priced.
It is just the fee we have to pay to get the player we want.
19 Jun 2026 05:49:06
Crazy to think that two decades ago £30m was a record transfer in the PL and now it's the norm for most players.
19 Jun 2026 06:30:39
I'd like to see the owners use the streaming money they get.
19 Jun 2026 06:51:52
Nigel Callaghan and Alan Cork would now both be worth £100m. And as for Ian Butterworth - the mind bugles!
19 Jun 2026 09:13:08
Simple case of opportunity cost for me. We've just lost one of the best players in our history on the right flank, but when you look around, there are no viable options to be seen. Diomande, in addition to being a very good player already, is the only one.
If it wasn't him, I'd be scared of who we would have to go for instead. I think we do need to play it smart this summer, but right wing is the one position that we need to pay whatever it takes to sort out.
19 Jun 2026 09:38:22
@Faith, Inflation isn't a realistic reflection of the football money trend. A more realistic comparison would be to consider that PL TV revenue in 2025 is 26 times what it was in 2003 so you could argue that the £12M Man United spent on Ronaldo was actually closer to £312M in todays football money making £100M for Diomande a massive bargain in comparison.
At the end of the day. If somebody is willing to pay it then that is what they are worth.
There will be loads of other things that the club will likely factor in too: How much revenue will be bring into the club in shirt sales? How will it affect the clubs marketing in Côte d'Ivoire and across wider Africa? What will his value be in 6 or 7 years when he reaches his peak?
Football finance is a complex dark art and that is one of the reasons that the late, great Ed002 always told us not to talk about it. let's not fret over transfer fees and let's just look forward to some exciting new additions coming in to play under our new exciting coach!
19 Jun 2026 10:05:01
To follow on from what Shipley said, inflation definitely isn't the right measure when considering transfer fee inflation. TV revenue is closer, but that covers increased wages too (pretty sure God was on something like £10k in his pomp, which would be x30 or x40 now).
I'd argue that a simple measure could be the rise of the transfer record - given it's related to fees.
In 2003, it was around £46m for Zizou, now it's £200m for Neymar, albeit a few years ago now!
That would make Ronaldo's fee right now at £50-£60m.
Does anyone know of an annual measure of average transfer fees year by year (or window by window)? That would be really useful.
{Ed001's Note - Neymar is not the record transfer fee, that is incorrect. There was no transfer fee paid for that move, he paid off his own release clause using money provided to him by PSG, but it was not actually a transfer fee.}