If there were any doubts left about the financial madness in football these days, Man City’s purchase of a 14-year-old for £1m has underscored the direction in which the game is going.
Back in 1979, Trevor Francis became the first £1m player in England at the age of 25. Things have moved on to such an extent that now a £100m transfer is looking likely to become the norm.
With teams in the Saudi Pro League paying salaries of up to £100m per year too, paying £1m for a player barely into his teens would, astonishingly, appear to be commensurate.
Regardless, it speaks of a game completely reliant on the wealthiest clubs and will surely lead to more and more of the lower division clubs going out of business in due course.
Not to mention at this point the pressure on young Tyrese Noubissie, whose move from Leicester was announced by The Telegraph‘s (subscription required) Mike McGrath, is going to be immense.
The move has raised the bar in terms of what’s acceptable when considering club-to-club purchases at academy level, and it isn’t really a surprise that football at the elite level is becoming more of a turn off for the ‘traditional’ football fan.
Noubissie will, apparently, begin life at City in their U16 team, and we’ll see if he eventually makes it all the way to the top – in which case his fee will seem like a bargain in hindsight.