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Hands up if you know or remember the first soccer player in England to be worth over 1 million? Don’t know? It was Trevor Francis. He was transferred from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest in 1979 where the legendary Brian Clough was the manager.
Thirty years later and soccer players are transferred for that amount regularly during transfer windows. Yesterday’s news that Cristiano Ronaldo would be joining Real Madrid for a world record transfer fee sent shockwaves around the game. So much for the recession. He’s set to be the most expensive player in the history of soccer. Real Madrid seem determined to build a team of Galacticos after already signing Kaka, and transfer rumors today are that they have also agreed a fee for David Villa of Valencia.
This is staggering. For another twenty million, Real Madrid could have bought Newcastle United – an entire soccer club! It’s an insane amount. Every player has their price, but it’s getting to the point now where players will join clubs just for the money. Take Gareth Barry for example. Aston Villa just missed out on a Champions League place but their long serving midfielder left to join Manchester City because he felt that City had better aspirations. Rubbish – he joined City because they were willing to pay him more money.
Soccer players have all the power in today’s game. Gone are the days when a contract meant something – now it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. What a sad indictment of the beautiful game. I wonder what Cloughy would think?
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