My last column was a thinly-veiled rant about Arsenal’s lack of spending in the summer transfer window. This week, with the window firmly closed and all business done, I’ll pick up where I left off and look at the biggest transfer saga of the summer: the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid.
Sold by Tottenham Hotspur for an eyewatering €100m (£85m), Bale last week became the most expensive footballer on the planet. And as much as it pains me to devote my column to our North London rivals, there are some interesting parallels with the investment world.
It must have been a tough decision for Spurs chairman Daniel Levy: should he fend off Madrid’s advances and keep hold of his best player or cash in and strengthen the squad? Ultimately, Levy agreed to sell and I suspect he made the right choice. Selling the Welshman has allowed the club to move beyond being a one-man team and truly diversify. Relying on one player is always risky no matter how talented they are. If they get injured you’re in trouble and, just as with investing, the potential for high rewards often go hand-in-hand with the potential for high volatility – just look at Liverpool’s Luis Suarez: one of the Premier League’s top scorers last season, but now in the middle of a 10-match ban for biting another player.
Diversifying is vital and that is exactly what Tottenham have done, anticipating the sale of Bale by bringing in a crop of high quality players across the pitch. It’s always better to blend various styles to achieve a greater sum of all parts and create a balanced team of players that complement one another.
So what have Madrid got for €100m? There’s no doubt that Bale is an incredibly gifted player, but he his impressive track record is built on just two seasons: three years ago, Spurs were considering selling him to Birmingham City for £3m.
Madrid are notorious for buying at the top of the market and if a short-term chase for trophies is what they hope to achieve, Bale might be their man. But of course, past performance is not an idicator of future returns – a quick look at big-name transfer flops such as Andre Shevchenko, Fernando Torres or Andy Carroll will tell you that much.
So what about looking for longer-term results? Just as in football, doing your homework and digging around for potential rather than performance is perhaps a better option. After all, wouldn’t we all prefer a Michu to a Torres on our team?
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