CR7 transfer to Juventus was underpriced and PSG paid too much for Neymar. New Algorithm to establish the right price for a transfer!

No more inflated capital gains or ridiculous amount of money to buy a player. This is the goal of Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, who apparently has proposed the introduction of an algorithm to establish the price of players. It is a mix of mathematical data that keep in consideration different parameters. The model has been created in 2010 by the Swiss Raffaele Poli, director of the Cies soccer observatory, the international center for sports studies. Poli and his team presented the idea to the FIFA in Zurich in 2013. However, Joseph Blatter did not adopt the system back then. Infantino instead, contacted personally Poli and his collaborators who, in the meanwhile, worked with Benifca and Manchester City.

OK, THE PRICE IS RIGHT

The system created by Poli has been developed in 2010 and its objective is to scientifically establish the price of every single player. The Cies has studied around 5,000 transfers between July 2011 and June 2018. The correlation between the estimated price and the actual price paid by the clubs is about 75%. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo has been evaluated EUR 103.4 million by the algorithm, but Juventus was able to get the Portuguese champion for EUR 100 million. One of the most criticized transfer was Neymar from Barcelona to PSG for EUR 222 million against the 210 estimated by the algorithm. Each price depends on the interest shown by the purchasing club plus other variables which are updated every week such as: players’ age, goal scored, assists, remaining contract, the level of the league in which they compete and so on.

THE SOLIDARITY FUND

According to El Pais, the FIFA is thinking to a reimbursement price in case the clubs pay more than the amount indicated by the algorithm. For example, if a player ‘s value is EUR 20 million and a club pays EUR 70, then the Federation could ask the purchasing club an extra EUR 50 million. A sort of “solidarity fund” that the UEFA could invest on the football training centers. However, due to lack of data, the model shows some limits when young players are involved in those transactions. A recent example is Vinicius: worth EUR 14 million according to the Cies, the young Brazilian was purchased by Real Madrid for about EUR 40 million. There is time to adjust the model to optimize its performance but the good news is that the FIFA is trying to guarantee more transparency to the whole soccer movement.

SMI press

Source: Sky Sport