A question about player valuations

I am not trying to start another thread debate about Zigic I am trying to better understand how the transfer market works in terms of player valuations and my question is irrelevant of whether Zigic would consider coming to Fulham.

On the Ins-Outs thread FFC24 stated he thought Zigic could be procured from Valencia for a transfer fee of between 6-8 million pounds. From reading the thread it seems like at least a few people found that number to be believable. I have to admit that when I compare Zigic with Crouch I don't logically find 24's estimate to be out of line. However, if wikipedia is correct Valencia just signed him in August of 2007 and the transfer fee using today’s exchange rates was somewhere north of 15 million pounds. During the 2007/2008 season it looks like his first team football was primarily as a sub and sporadic even then with his few starts coming during cup matches.

I need to look no farther than Ronaldo and Torres to see examples of how a player’s valuation can dramatically increase over the course of a year. My question is does the inverse hold true that if a player has one “poor” season will his valuation drop dramatically in that one year?

In American sports once a player gains a reputation of being “good” it often takes longer to lose the reputation than it took to gain the reputation. More-often-than-not it takes multiple “poor” seasons for that player to be rated (relative trade value) at the level he is currently performing at rather than the level he once performed at. Because of this it is hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea of a players valuation falling so dramatically in one season. Any thoughts or examples of players valuations taking a nose dive after one season?

 

Good summary Don. I would also add that clubs like Chelsea, Manchester United and Real Madrid have really made for smaller clubs to have valuation fees much higher than what a player was really worth.

If a club like Fulham knows that Chelsea or Manchester United really want one of our players, we already know that money is not something that will stop it from happening. Therefore the smaller clubs must hold out for as much as possible which is usually more than what a player is worth.

As Don said, if a player's price is what a club is willing to pay. If the selling club is tough and plays hard that price will be above what the player is worth.

Timing has a lot to do with it as well. The best example right now is Arshavin and his recent performance at Euro 2008. He was a good player with Zenit but by no means was he a world beater as he is being perceived as right now. Thus, his valuation is through the roof right now because he is the toast of the town. The bigger clubs will surely spend the money that Zenit St. Petersburg will ask whereas two months ago those clubs may have spent to get Arshavin, but not nearly the price he will end up being sold for.

Player valuations are a tough thing to figure out, but keep in mind, like most American sports, players are valued and paid much more than they are worth. For example, goal scorers are going usually cost an arm and a leg because there are not many quality goal scorers out there. Do the names David Nugent and Diomansy Kamara come to mind at all? Were either of these players worth the 6 million pounds Portsmouth and Fulham paid for each of them? Probably not, but the market dictates the prices.

Lastly, agents play a huge role in this. Once a player is "on the market" an agent will tell the media that his player is being courted by this club and that club and prices will be mentioned when in actuality it is usually a load of crap to simply get other clubs interested and to raise the transfer fee of the player.

Unfortunately, Fulham could be a club that is one the negative end of this kind of action by an agent. We might read reports of Fulham pursuing a player but in reality the pursuit has no chance of materializing because the agent is using Fulham as a leverage to get other bigger clubs interested in the player.

The whole transfer market is rather interesting to me. However, as a Fulham supporter it can be frustrating. I have learned over the years that reports and rumours are more often than not false. Sometimes stories and rumours come to fruition, but not often.

 

I am sure this question is also muddled by the amount of cash being generated by PL teams now compared to ten years ago also.

Tom's question about Nugent or Kamara being worth 6 million pounds is kind of like asking the going rate for a fourth starting pitcher in MLB. If you have a hole to fill and money to spend then player values go up in that position because there are only so many proven arms and hot prospects to go around. I'm sure 6 million pounds today will not buy the quality of player 6 million pounds would have gotten a team 5 or 10 years ago.

 

The number of years left on a players contract dramatically reduces his price. Once a contract is complete the player can leave the club for free (going on a Bosman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling).

For example, Steed Malbranque went for a fraction of his worth because his contract was about to end. Saha went for over the odds because he had years to run on his contract.

Age is a big factor too. An outfield player is usually considered at his prime around the age of 27. The gamble is giving a player a 5 year contract only to suffer a career ending injury 2 months into the contract,or risking losing millions on a transfer?

But it all comes down to how much a club/agent thinks they can get for a player. Below is a list of some players whom were sold for over £3 million last summer. For example Roque Santa Cruz / Robert Earnshaw went for the same fee last summer.


Bacary Sagna £6,000,000
Eduardo Da Silva £10,000,000
Thierry Henry £16,000,000
Jose Antonio Reyes £8,000,000
Marlon Harewood £4,000,000
Nigel Reo Coker £8,500,000
Zat Knight £3,500,000
Steven Davis £4,000,000
Roque Santa Cruz £3,500,000
Robert Earnshaw £3,500,000
Claude Davis £3,000,000
Phil Jagielka £4,000,000
Aiyegbeni Yakubu £11,250,000
James Beattie £4,000,000
Diomansy Kamara£6,000,000
Paul Konchesky£2,000,000
Chris Baird £3,025,000
Ryan Babel £11,500,000
Fernando Torres £21,500,000
Yossi Benayoun £5,000,000
Lucas Leiva £8,000,000
Luis Garcia £3,500,000
Djibril Cisse £6,000,000
Craig Bellamy £7,500,000
Owen Hargreaves £17,000,000
Anderson £17,000,000
Nani £14,000,000
Tomasz Kuszczak £3,000,000
Kieran Richardson £5,500,000
Alan Smith £6,000,000