Who’s Europe’s most valuable soccer star? Not Neymar, Messi, Ronaldo or Mbappe...
Top-ranked player proves big surprise in rankings of estimated ‘fair’ transfer values of 25 leading players in European top leagues, compiled by Swiss think tank
This article was originally written by Alan Dawson for Business Insider.
A list of the “estimated rankings of values” of the most expensive soccer players in Europe has been drawn up by a prominent research group in Switzerland.
The rankings make interesting reading because Portugal international Cristiano Ronaldo, a five-time Champions League winner, barely makes the list – down from 11th place in last year’s ranking – while Brazil striker Neymar, who was transferred from Spanish giants Barcelona to French champions Paris Saint-Germain for a world record fee of US$260 million last summer, also fails to make top spot.
Football think tank CIES Football Observatory researched data from 5,000 transfer deals over a seven-year-period and used those figures to assess “fair” transfer values for active soccer players in the top five European leagues – the English Premier League, La Liga in Spain, Germany’s Bundesliga, Italy’s Serie A, and Ligue 1 in France.
Factors such as talent level, contract duration and the age of each soccer player were taken into account in the rankings, as well as the status of the club doing the signing.
CIES discovered, after speaking to executives at Europe’s elite clubs, that “the status of the recruiting club has a major influence in determining the transfer price”.
Here are the 25 most valuable soccer players, their ages, clubs and national teams, positions and – according to the research – estimated transfer values – who are now playing in Europe, ranked in ascending order.
25. Marc-André ter Stegen, 26
Barcelona and Germany goalkeeper