In one of the summer's most drawn-out transfer sagas, Welsh winger Gareth Bale has finally got his wish and will don the famous white shirt for Real Madrid this season. In what has been reported as a world record fee of £85.3 Million, eclipsing the £80 Million that Madrid paid Manchester United for Cristiano Ronaldo back in 2008, Bale will have to bear the burden of that enormous fee. In this post, I will be looking back at the history of the world transfer record, and its progression through the decades. I will also be assessing Bale's abilities, asking whether he will be able to live up to that price tag, and, even more basic, whether he was worth that money in the first place?
Transfers between clubs were introduced a short while after player registrations in 1885. Transfer fees soon followed, as clubs realised that their players were financial assets. This led to the transfer record being set at £100 for West Bromwich Albion's Willie Groves, paid by Aston Villa. 12 years later, Middlesbrough would break the £1,000 mark for Sunderland's Alf Common. By 1928, that figure had added another 0, with Bolton Wanderers's David Jack transferring to Herbert Chapman's Arsenal for a fee of £10,890. The 1929 Wall Street Crash prevented the European clubs further breaking the record, but it did little to stem spending on transfer fees, with the next record set just 3 years later. Argentinian side River Plate bought Bernabe Ferreyra from fellow Argentine club Tigre for £23,000, more than doubling the previous record. That record remained until after the Second World War, with Derby County's £24,000 bid for Manchester United's Johnny Morris.
A year later, the record was £30,000, as Aston Villa sold Trevor Ford to Sunderland. After the half way point of the century, the records started to tumble as the price escalated. In 1952, the record had passed the £50,000 mark, with the first of seven consecutive Italian based records. Atalanta's Hans Jeppson was sold to Napoli for £52,000. Within two years, that had increased to £72,000, as AC Milan bought Penarol's Juan Schiaffino. The next landmark was passed in 1961, as Inter Milan's bid for Barcelona's Luis Suarez (not the bitey one) passed the six figure mark, at £152,000. Two years later, another landmark was passed, as Roma paid the first ever quarter of a million pounds fee for Mantova's Angelo Sormani. By 1968, that had doubled, with Pietro Anastasi bringing Varese £500,000 of Juventus's cash. After Johan Cruyff's move to Barcelona in 1973 for a fee of £922,000, the £1 Million mark was finally broken as Napoli paid £1.2 Million for Bologna's Giuseppe Savoldi. This would spark an even more rapid acceleration in fees.
The passing of the £1 Million mark was a significant point in football transfer history, as within ten years of that point, the record had quintupled. A year after Savoldi's transfer, Paolo Rossi added another £500,000 to the record, transferring from Vicenza to Juventus. Then came a pair of records for the same man, just two years apart. The world's best player at the time, and arguably of all time, Diego Maradona, smashed the record in 1982, moving from Argentinian side Boca Juniors to Barcelona for a fee of £3 Million. After the briefest of spells with the Catalan side, he was on the move again two years later, breaking his own record with a £5 Million move to Napoli. That record would not last until the end of the decade however, with Ruud Gullit's 1987 transfer from PSV Eindhoven to AC Milan adding another £1 Million to the record. Just 5 years later, we saw the start of the 'modern era' of transfer fees, with the inaugural £10 Million transfer for Marseille's Jean-Pierre Papin from AC Milan. That record would not last a year, with first Gianluca Vialli's move to Juventus (£12 Million) and then Gianluigi Lentini's to AC Milan (£13 Million).
The final English team to break the world transfer record to date occurred in 1996, with the return of the 'prodigal son' Alan Shearer to his hometown Newcastle United from Blackburn, for a fee of £15 Million. At the time, this transfer was considered to be obscene. Few could have predicted the course the next 15 or so years would take in terms of finances. For each of the next 5 years, the transfer record was repeatedly broken. 1997 saw Brazilian legend Ronaldo move from Barcelona to Inter Milan for a reported £19.5 Million. In 1998, Denilson would add another £2.5 Million to this, taking the total past the £20 Million mark with his move to Real Betis. The following year, Christian Vieri's move from Lazio to Inter Milan blitzed this, with a fee of £32 Million. And still the spending did not stop. The turn of the millenium saw the record broken twice, with firstly Hernan Crespo's move to Lazio from Parma (£35.5 Million), before Luis Figo made the controversial move across the El Clasico line from Barcelona to Real Madrid for £37 Million. This marked the beginning of the Real Madrid dominance in terms of transfer records, as another three would follow.
A year later, in 2001, Zinedine Zidane saw the completion of the famous 'Galacticos' of the early 2000's. His transfer from Juventus for £46.6 Million completed an unbelievable run of spending from the Spanish side, and many believed that the fee commanded by the Italians would never be beaten. It certainly ended the run of yearly record-breaking, leaving a good 8 years before the next record. However, the Real Madrid spending of the late 90s and early 2000's sparked an inflated price for all footballers, and £10-20 Million fees became commonplace in Europe's top leagues. By 2009, financial powerhouses like Chelsea, and then Manchester City were beginning to come to the fore, but the election of Real Madrid chairman Florentino Perez sparked another bout of staggering spending. He firstly spent £56 Million on Brazil's playmaker Kaka, who had led AC Milan to Champions League glory two seasons before, and then obliterated that record just two months later, landing Manchester United's prolific forward Cristiano Ronaldo for a ridiculous £80 Million. This is the record that Gareth Bale has outdone with his transfer today.
Or has he? If we adjust the previous transfer records for inflation since the records were made, we see some vast increases. Here are a few notable changes. The very first transfer record, set by Willie Groves in 1885 at £100, would today be worth £10,417.26. The first £10,000 transfer, set in 1928, David Jack, would now cost £578,804.59, and the 1952 £52,000 transfer of Hans Jeppson would set a modern club back £1,267,432.40. These changes indicate the relative value of players to today's standards, as a £1.2 Million player would be considered a steal. Even Diego Maradona, considered one of the best players ever to have played, cannot challenge the value of his contemporary peers. His 1984 move to Napoli for £5 Million would cost just £13,626,500.00, or less than Wilfried Zaha. Whilst the young Englishman looks a prospect, few would expect him to be in the same league as the Argentine.
As we moved into the modern day era, here we can begin to discover whether Bale really is the world's most valuable player. Alan Shearer's 1996 fee of £15 Million equates to £23,848,500, Luis Figo's 2000 £37 Million transfer becomes £52,784,200, and Zinedine Zidane, the most expensive of the Galaticos at £46.6 Million in 2001, gets even closer at £65,305,240. He beats Kaka (£63 Million), but even he remains a good £20 Million away from the Bale fee. Only Cristiano Ronaldo's £80 Million price is left between Bale and the MVP accolade. However, in the four years that have passed since that transfer, inflation has taken the value of Ronaldo past the £90 Million mark, at a grand total of £90,848,000.00. This makes Ronaldo the most valuable player in the history of association football, but Bale retains the 'highest transfer fee commanded' tag.
Semantics aside, £85.3 Million is a whole lot of money to pay for an individual player. So is the Welshman worth it? I will start by assessing whether Bale will be able to live up to the pressure of the £85.3 Million price tag placed on his shoulders, before comparing his attributes to that of previous greats to determine whether he is worth that relative to other players. A major concern for clubs when agreeing a deal for that amount is whether the numbers will act as a weight on the back of the player in question. I will give an example. Fernando Torres, at both Atletico Madrid and Liverpool, was a scoring machine. Consistently into 20/30 goals a season, his £15 Million transfer from Spain to Merseyside seemed a bargain, and it evidently put no pressure on him. However, Chelsea's January 2011 £50 Million move for the Spaniard seemingly pressurised him. 'El Nino's' spark was gone, and he has yet to fully recover, having failed to trouble the top goalscorers in the Premier League since his big money move down South. The worry is that Bale will react in a similar way. Having arrived at Spurs for a mere £10 Million back in 2007, the winger has had no expectations thrust upon him, and as a result has been able to ride the crest of the wave. Now, he will instantly find every move he makes under intense scrutiny. Some players can handle it, and some cannot.
However, one of his new teammates knows all about the pressure of a big price tag. Cristiano Ronaldo has thrived since his £80 Million move from Man United in 2009, and he will undoubtedly play a significant role in ensuring Bale stays at the top of his game. The Portuguese striker has been in Bale's place, and will be able to give the Welshman valuable advice on dealing with the pressure. I am not saying that Bale will not have wobbles, or find himself out of form at times, but he will have someone that understands his situation, and will be able to help him through the hard times.
But is Bale really worth £85 Million? How do his abilities compare with those of his fellow record breakers? He is certainly no better at passing than Zidane, or any quicker than Ronaldo, or better at finishing than Vieri, but he does have that spark. The ability to create something out of nothing is a rare one indeed, and you see it in so few top players. As for the valuation placed on that ability, I think that unless he single-handledly wins them multiple Champions League titles, which is highly unlikely, he will not come close to paying back that amount. I personally disagree with the idea that any footballer is worth that sum, however, perhaps it is best to say that it is similar to art. It is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
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