At a time when inflation is a headline issue across continents
and economic strata, it seems that not even football
clubs with their millions are exempt from sudden price rise.
Manchester United’s estimated £17 million capture of David
de Gea from Spain’s Athletico Madrid is only the latest move
in Sir Alex Ferguson’s latest rebuilding project. Ferguson’s attempt
to improve the quality available to him has already seen
a £30 million outlay on teenage defender Phil Jones (see my
last entry, ‘Buying Local’) and winger Ashley Young.

De Gea, however, could be the most important United summer
arrival. Ferguson has an iffy record with goalkeepers. The
just-retired Edwin van der Sar proved a worth successor to
Peter Schmeichel, but only after ten other goalkeepers, including
the likes of Fabian Barthez, Roy Carroll and Tim Howard,
had lined up in goal for United. United’s defense is solid but
needs an equally good ‘keeper to provide backup.

So De Gea has to deliver, and his price tag will only add to
the pressure. Especially since it represents a £17 million increase
on the fee that Wigan Athletic, a club that nearly suffered
relegation from the EPL, nearly paid for him a few seasons
ago. Roberto Martinez, Wigan’s manager, was reportedly
hours away from signing the now-United ‘keeper on loan from
Athletico, a move that would have seen De Gea arrive in the
EPL for a grand total of nothing. It’s impossible to calculate a
percentage inflation on nada, so suffice it to say that De Gea
has seen his footballing worth skyrocket in a very short space
of time.

Could-have-been moves for unlikely figures are not restricted
to young Spanish goalkeepers, and United’s Ferguson
seems to have a particular fondness for them. Last summer,
in addition to United’s breakout sensation Javier Hernandez,
Ferguson signed a Portuguese forward named Bebe from Vitoria
de Guimaraes. Seemingly normal, given Ferguson’s past
success with fellow Portuguese forwards Nani and Cristiano
Ronaldo (who I’ll get to in a moment). However, Bebe’s £7.4
million transfer fee was almost 60 times the £125000 that he
had been available for only months earlier.

Not only did Bebe move to United for 60,000 percent of what
he had earlier been valued at, but the Portuguese forward has
now been loaned out to Turkish club Besiktas, which will be
able to buy him for £2 million at the end of the coming season.
The set transfer fee at the end of his loan is a 370 per cent drop
in his value, meaning that not only has Bebe’s value inflated
wildly over the last 12-odd months, but it has deflated unbelievably
as well!

Liverpool’s Andy Carroll is another player who has seen a
remarkable rise in transfer value. At the end of the 2008–2009
EPL season, Carroll was valued at a mere £1 million by relegated-
to-the-Championship Newcastle United. After topping the
goal scoring charts in the following Championship season,
then scoring 12 goals in the first half of the last EPL one, Carroll
replaced Fernando Torres at Liverpool for £35 million.
De Gea took two excellent seasons at Athletico to go from almost-
loaned to the £17 million great-United-goalkeeping-hope.
Carroll took almost that long to cause Newcastle to demand
35 times their previous asking-price for his services. Bebe’s
ridiculous inflation in value happened over a few months. But
perhaps the most sudden increase in a footballer’s value involved
two clubs already mentioned in this blog entry — Manchester
United and Liverpool.

Cristiano Ronaldo, not long ago the best player in the world,
was offered to Liverpool by his then-club Sporting Lisbon of
Portugal for £4 million. Literally days later, after Ronaldo had
almost single-footedly defeated Manchester United in a friendly,
he moved there for £12.24 million. A few seasons on, he
moved again, this time to Real Madrid for a world-record £80
million, a 2000 percent increase from his original proposed
cost to Liverpool.

The crazy transfer fees that football clubs pay each other
for players are a constant source of surprise. The ridiculous
inflation of players’ values, whether it be over days, months or
seasons only reinforces that!