Last season after the repurchase of paul pogba by manchester united, it became clear to me that the transfer market had been broken. A player with the track record, age, experience, potential, and demand is supposed to be invaluable to a club searching glory like juventus, but it became clear that after manchester united did not mind whatever they wanted in exchange for him that a players monetary value does not reflect a players football value anymore. Add that to the possibility of a player that could also be qualified as invaluable in neymar moving to psg, and manchester city spending more than 100 million in full backs and you'll see in todays market money is just an abstract figure in buying and selling players and that players are now assets with values that fluctuate with almost no cohesion with they're football ability and potential.

Logically, it is normal for values to rise. However, the discussion that I would like to bring up is about perspective. What do we against a market that seeks to gain independence from the actual game that we love? What can an up and coming ballon d or winner do if he sinks in the competition against other average players that get the contracts they deserve just because they are viewed as a higher asset. Is it even ethical to spend 200 million pounds on a player when that money can be used to for much more important purposes? At this pace we could very see a day in which we stop the games from being played and just having live player stock exchange on sunday afternoons w thousands viewing.

Im far from an expert in this topic, so id love to see more experienced and informed opinions on this. Where do we go from here?

Well first of, the topic your talking about is actually pretty interesting and I was myself thinking of bringing it up. Yes, absolutely, after Pogba's transfer, other team realized the amount of money they can get from English side in particular. After all, when comparing a good player with Pogba, it could be easy to say that this other player could be worth 60M or 70M. The problem isn't for me however what team are demanding for player (even if it getting unreasonable) but the fact that other team can actually pay that amount. I don't think however we will get to a point where football will stop being player in the way we love, but I do fear there is a risk of drop in quality because every team are gonna want "superstar" who are more popular than good.

Sadly this will be an ever growing problem in the sport. The transfer fees have sky rocketed mainly due to rich owners (PSG, City, Chelsea) and the incredible tv deals in the EPL and Barca/Madrid. FIFA and UEFA are incapable of controlling the fees since there are so many ways teams can get around them FFP was put in place to promote less astronomical transfers yet here we are. City spending close to 200mil in on window and PSG possibly spending that much on a single player.

Football has become a business and the CEOs, Boards and owners will just see the $ to be gained and not care much for the way the team plays or what they achieve as long as money is being made. I'm scared for the future were an average player will cost around 60mil, that just leaves no room for new teams to grow leaving the only possible solution having an academy to be a feeder club.

Everyone's talking about neymar but it's probably more likely to be Mbappe's £160m move to Real Madrid that drive the market upwards.

Several things must happen :

1. Equal Tv rights money distribution
2. transfer cap on NET expenditure .
3. Heavier Transfer regulations . On of the Examples :Not luring and pulling off illegal moves to bring in players . Punishment should be heavy transfer ban , competition ban and even title stripping . Not one transfer season ban . Like the joke of a ban Madrid clubs with Barcelona got .
4. Crear a system of Check and balances of 1,2 and 3

An even bigger problem is the ridiculous agent fees being paid out (Look at what Mendes or Raiola earn) and 3rd party ownership of players.

I'm ok with ridiculously high transfer fees for established players but when there are talks of transfer fees around €180m for 18-year-old Mbappe, that's when I lose faith in the world, humanity, and football.

Exactly guys,

This whole fluctuation is ridiculous. not to mention those large transfer-money involved clubs are just laundering money around, and based on evaluation money (not directly from fans and sports events), but investors, oils, estates, crazy-ass business.

I sure understand the business side of the king sport, and we live in the era of all the bubbles. But, most of those definitely influence general market (different industries) directly or indirectly. Cash goes around in a crazy unsustainable way is bad.

:(

I agree with KTBFFHSWE.

My personal frustration is with EPL's market, I feel like we are a bunch of stupid a$s spoiled, dumb kids with rich parents.