With an in-flow of £374 million, Liverpool are now revealed to be the most profitable selling club among Europe’s Top 5 leagues since the turn of the decade.
Over the past few years, the FSG have been subject to heavy criticism for various aspects of their transfer dealings. Their emphasis on a ‘Moneyball’ strategy to recruit players seemed to work initially, but the supporters haven’t entirely taken to the philosophy.
Even the owners’ refusal at times to go over-the-top to land a world-class player, has, at times, invited the ire of the Reds’ faithful. One might point out numerous short-comings of their approach towards recruitment and transfers, but their penchant for demanding value for their players cannot be questioned.
In a recent study by CIES Football Observatory, the Reds have been revealed to accrue the highest value out of their sales among Europe’s top league set-ups in England, Spain, Germany, Italy, France and Portugal, since the turn of the decade.
With an income of £374 million Liverpool sit top in the list followed by the likes of Valencia (£366 million), Juventus (£352 million), Porto (£351 million) and Benfica (£324 million). Chelsea (£303 million), Southampton (£227 million) and Manchester City (£209 million) are the only other English clubs that feature in the top 20.
Where did it all come from?
A significant amount of the Reds income of £374 million arrived from the big-money sales of Luis Suarez (£65 million) to Barcelona, Fernando Torres (£50 million) to Chelsea and Raheem Sterling to Manchester City (£44 million) that together helped rake in £159 million.
Add to it the sales of ‘high-profile blunders’ like that of Christian Benteke and Andy Carroll along with youngsters like Jordon Ibe, Brad Smith and Luis Alberto in recent times and one get’s a clearer picture as to where their size-able income has come in from.
On the other hand, Liverpool are the 6th biggest spenders in the continent with an investment of £567 million being pumped in to new signings over the last 6 years. Not all of them have turned out successful for the Reds, with the likes of Mario Balotelli, Fabio Borini, Benteke, Carroll etc being some of their more expensive mistakes and they were let off for a considerable loss as well.
The big spending has continued under Jurgen Klopp as well, with the club coughing up as high as £55 million on the purchases of Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum alone and if early signs are any indication, they look to be quite decent additions to the squad.
Interestingly, despite the influx of big-money recruits, the Reds managed to accrue a profit from their business in the recently concluded transfer window, with their sales surpassing their expenditure. This has come with the changes Klopp has initiated in the Reds transfer strategy and only time will tell if his approach bears fruit for Liverpool.
Does money guarantee success?
By nearly a country mile, Manchester City took the honours of being the biggest spenders, shelling out £867 million on players since 2010. Meanwhile, Chelsea sit a distant 2nd with an expenditure of £737 million while Manchester United, PSG and Barcelona respectively complete the Top 5.
In this day and age with a huge amount of investment coming into the sport, money does play a big factor in ensuring the progress and success of a football club.
Although the title triumphs of Atletico Madrid in 2013-14 and Leicester City in 2015-16 would beg to differ with that stance, their successes remain some of football’s strangest anomalies in recent history.
The injection of big money into the sport hasn’t been looked to kindly by some of football’s purists, who still believe in scouting players and developing them for the future. But in the immense competition prevalent in the league setups across the continent, there is no guarantee a young prospect will stay on at his club if he is being valued higher elsewhere.
A squad with a good balance of quality, talent and potential is the conventional indicator of success and these days it comes at a price.
A significant number of big spenders over the last decade like Manchester City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea and PSG, to name a few, have earned their fair share of success. The aforementioned teams share a combined haul of 13 league titles and an array of other successes in cup competitions as well to show for the investment that has been pumped into the clubs.
So as pure a success Leicester’s triumph in 2015-16 maybe, the only way teams like the Foxes can prolong their purple patch is to dig deep into their pockets to keep pace with the fierce competition in the league and across Europe.
And that is precisely what they have done in the recently concluded window, with their purchases of Islam Slimani and Ahmed Musa among other impressive buys.
