FootballTransfers Player Valuations: How it works

FT Desk

Updated: 23 May 2023 08:55 CDT
2 min read

Valuing a football player is difficult.

There are a number of variables at play, all of which can change on a week-by-week basis to impact how the rest of the market values that player. It’s not easy. But there’s always a better way of doing it.

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FootballTransfers introduce our player valuation, with which we provide a € value for every professional footballer in Europe’s top leagues. These values are updated on the first day of the month, every month, to highlight the change in player circumstances across the 30 days prior.

How we calculate player valuations

FootballTransfers collaborate with SCISports, a renowned data insights organisation which works directly with professional clubs across the world, providing next-generation player, team and opposition analysis.

We have utilised their artificial intelligence tools to devise a player valuation which is relevant to the current post-COVID transfer market, in which most clubs have reduced spending power and the overall rise of the market has stalled somewhat.

Our valuations are there to help to understand how the market has undergone changes since 2020, and how this will shape the value of players going forward.

This makes FootballTransfers transfer valuations the most accurate and realistic available.

We value players using a series of key characteristics:

PLAYER PERFORMANCE:

A player’s performance accumulated over time and referenced alongside FT’s unique ‘best players’ algorithm.

PLAYER POTENTIAL:

Recognising a player’s current performance level, age, and standard at which they are playing to project how good they could eventually become.

PLAYER LEVEL

What standard is the player currently featuring at? Are they playing in the Champions League? Are they an international?

PLAYER AGE

How old is the player? Are they a young developing talent with many years ahead of them, or are they a player coming to the end of their career?

CONTRACT LENGTH

Is the player locked into a long-term contract that would make it difficult for him to be transferred, or is his contract soon coming to an end?

We use these measures to create a standard valuation for a player.

FT Valuation range

But we also know that predicting a player’s exact valuation is also extremely difficult; factors such as which club is looking to buy the player also impacts how much he will be sold for. In this way it’s also important for us to understand undervalued and overvalued players.

So at FootballTransfers we also provide a range set below and above the player value to give an indication of the type of fee a player may be transferred for.