Who is the Most Expensive Hungarian Soccer Player?

In December, the news exploded: Dominik Szoboszlai changed clubs for a record amount of money for a Hungarian player. 

Earlier, Balázs Dzsudzsák kept the record with his price of 19 million euros, but RB Leipzig – one of the top valuable football teams nowadays in European football (known as soccer in America) – transferred 20 million euros to Salzburg for the latest Hungarian star.

The Olympiacos did not give that much for Lajos Détári, the star of the then even classic Hungarian football, and it is not worth talking about Albert Flórián’s purchase price, as he kicked the skin all the way in Fradi.

If we feel something strange in these comparisons at different times, it is a very correct mistrust. The forint or the euro as a unit of measurement was not invented as stable and not as stable as the meter bar, but as highly variable. The price of a football player depends largely on different things, like:

1. the particular environment
2. the relative value of currencies
3. The demand and supply with which football clubs appear in this particular market.

But can it still be said that the amount paid for Dominic Szoboszlai counts as a transfer record? To do this, we interpret a phenomenon called inflation in the world of football.

What does inflation mean in football?

Inflation is usually ridiculed as money deterioration, but if we do not think of the contents of our wallets as food, it is much more appropriate to call this process a lasting and general change in price levels. If the price of the products in question rises, we are talking about inflation, if it is falling, we are talking about deflation. For example, general Hungarian inflation in 2020 was 3.3 percent. 

We can examine a product more specifically, in which case we separate the supply and demand of the market from the other segments of the economy. For example, if you are selling real estate or are about to buy it, you should only observe the increase or decrease in the value of the consumer basket made up of real estate.

Real estate prices are generally more hectic than headline inflation, so larger fluctuations and trend-like changes can be observed here.

Similarly in the football market: football clubs are mainly interested in the movement of football players’ price tags, for example, they would not take bread in their own basket of consideration when considering how much to pay for a particular one.

As in the real estate market, so in football, demand drives prices, and now we are basically thinking of the demand for the game itself. Clubs can spend the revenues in the transfer market that they generate in the different revenue markets (sponsorship, broadcasting rights, and consumer market).

As everywhere, the consumer is at the heart of it all. If a tournament is fierce, many will be watching the matches on the spot and in front of the TVs, so the tournament can be sold well to sponsors from all over the world.

If we look at the ledgers of modern clubs, we find that the most significant portion of their revenue comes from the broadcasting rights market. So, by default, rising brokerage royalties affect the average price level rise in the transfer market.

In addition, there are even events where the transfer activity of a club triggers a chain reaction that results in an unexpected rise in price levels.

Inflated purchase fee

Measuring football player inflation, on the other hand, is difficult. For example, how do we measure if transfer fees are just leaked, never public?

Because of these and similar issues, several methodologies have emerged to measure football player inflation. The most common in the literature is the so-called Transfer Price Index methodology developed by Paul Tomkins and Graeme Riley.

They created their own database of all the transfer fees available to them in England, and from these, they created inflation indices with some weightings dating back to 1992.

The Hungarian authors of the football economics book Merseyball have extracted the same database and methodology with more recent data.

If we transfer a transfer fee from the past to the present using this, we get how much the price paid in the past would be in real terms today. With this technique, time-varying verification fees become comparable. These fees quoted at today’s exchange rate have been termed the purchase fee inflated in the book or IVD.

Who is the most expensive in this area?

Who can be the most expensive Hungarian player? We do not need to recalculate the price of Dominik Szoboszlai, as this transfer has just taken place, but the purchase price of Juják does.

The latter changed clubs for € 19 million during the winter transfer period of the 2011/2012 season. Since then, prices in the European transfer market have increased on average by 2,658 times. This means that, nowadays, instead of 19 million, the transfer would cost € 50.5 million

This price is significantly higher than the € 20 million paid by the Leipzig team for Szoboszla’s playing rights. However, it is important to point out that the 50.5 million was not the real price back then, just a comparison with the prices nowadays.

Bet on European Football

Nowadays, Hungarian players are playing in the most different leagues in Europe, and you can enjoy all these leagues by making sports bets.

Just access bet365 hu, register, and start placing your wagers on your favorite leagues and teams.

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