World Cup fever is upon us. TheScore recently reported the market value of each national team by summing the estimated transfer fees of each player on the team’s roster. The estimated transfer fee represents the amount of money a club would have to pay to acquire a specific player from another club (get him out of his current club contract). Argentinean forward Lionel Messi, arguably the best player in the world, has the highest estimated transfer fee of approximately $163,000,000. Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo commands the second highest transfer fee of approximately $136,000,000. The team with the highest valuation, according to the sum of transfer fees metric, is Brazil with a total valuation of $718,299,900. Spain has the second highest valuation of $673,567,074. Honduras has the lowest market value in the tournament of $45,053,928. The valuation disparity between the “richest” team and “poorest” team is significant, with Brazil’s market value being almost 16 times greater than that of Honduras. Similarities can be drawn between financial markets and the club transfer markets in soccer. A company’s market value is roughly determined by its fundamentals and future growth prospects. Similarly, a player’s transfer fee is determined by his fundamental skill and his ability to generate future revenue for the acquiring team (merchandise sales, ticket sales, network contracts, etc). For the complete valuation list visit theScore's article.
Chris Cyndecki CFA, CFP®