By Andrew Warshaw
September 4 – FIFA president Sepp Blatter says FIFA can do nothing to stop spiralling transfer fees following the world record €100 million sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. Meanwhile FIFA TMS (Transfer Matching System), which monitors the movement of players, is reporting $3.4 billion of player sales globally this year (to September 3), a 29% uplift on 2012.
Bale began life as a Madrid player this week at the end of transfer window during which fees shot through the roof especially in the Premier League where clubs took advantage of an eye-watering £5.5 billion deal for domestic and overseas TV rights to spend on players.
“(Even) when you say a country is poor or in debt, you always find money in football,” said Blatter.
“If the price of a player is high or not high, I think it’s the market that decides and we cannot intervene in the market.”
Blatter said he doubted any player was worth the sum paid for Bale whose move eclipsed the sum for Christiano Ronaldo, also paid by Real Madrid.
“If a player is the value of that, I doubt it, but I cannot stop it,” he said.
While the Bale transfer has attracted the attention of FIFA’s president, and the rest of the world, FIFA has reported that from 1 January 2013 to 2 September 2013, 10,454 transfers were processed by FIFA TMS.
This is a slight drop on 2012 when 10,513 transfers were processed
5,018 clubs from 164 countries across the globe were involved in player transfers with the total amount of declared transfer fees in 2013 being $3.367 billion, a 29% increase on the 2012 figure of $2.619 billion. Declared commissions paid to club intermediaries was up $169 million up 20% on the 2012 the figure of $141 million. FIFA further reported that over a two year period, commission paid to club intermediaries has risen 80%.
Markets that saw most player movement were from Portugal to Brazil (132 transfers) and Argentina to Chile (98). The markets generating the most in transfer fees were, not surprisingly, Spain to England ($227 million, 38 players), and from Italy to England ($148 million, 25 players).
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