A recently released study by Swiss-based CIES Football Observatory identified the exact market-values of most players in Europe. The Observatory could then determine which investments were financially wise and which were not.
As the worst investment of last Summer ranked Madrid’s purchase of Gareth Bale. Valued at almost £51M, Perez paid about £30M more than the player was worth.
Plenty of you were asking where is Gareth Bale....he features on the list of the most over-priced footballers: #SST pic.twitter.com/82twrkosgi
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) June 4, 2014
Coming in second place is AS Monaco’s Radamel Falcao. According to the study, the French club paid for the Colombian £25M more than the striker’s real value.Marouane Fellaini comes in 5th, with Manchester United overpaying the midfielder by about £12M. Finally, Soldado closes the list in 10th place, having cost the Spurs just less than £10M over his calculated worth.
The list of Europe's worst investments from last Summer
Soldado is valued at £14M, almost £10M less than what Tottenham paid
Fellaini cost £12M more than his calculated market value of £13.6M
CIES Football Observatory also concluded that the absolute best investment of last Summer was Max Kruse, whom Borussia Monchengladbach signed for a bargain from Freiburg due to the existence of a low buy-out clause. According to the study, the striker’s current market value is eight times higher than the €2M paid by the Germans last year.
Max Kruse, 26, played for Germany during the qualification, but won't go to Brazil
Rated as worth £10M, the study ranked Manchester United’s Adnan Januzaj, as the highest value player who made a debut in 2013-14, who cost nothing to their club due to the player being a product of the club’s academy.
