So the 2017 “summer transfer window” is going to close in three days’ time. It’s been an unusual market, with oddly inflated valuations – such as Neymar going for ~ €200 million from Barcelona to PSG, and Manchester City paying in excess of £50 million each for a pair of full backs (Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy).
Meanwhile, transfers are on in the NBA as well. Given that American sporting leagues have a rather socialist structure, there is no money exchanged. Instead, you have complicated structures such as this one between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics:
by trading Kyrie Irving (pictured, left), their star point guard, to the Boston Celtics. In exchange, Mr Altman received a package of three players headlined by Isaiah Thomas (right), plus a pick in the 2018 entry draft
A week back, renowned blogger Amit Varma interviewed me for his The Seen and the unseen podcast. The topic was football transfers, something that I talk about in the first chapter of my soon-to-be-published book. In that, he asked me what the football transfer market might look like in the absence of price. And I mentioned that PSG might have had to give up their entire team in order to buy Neymar in that situation.
Anyway, listen to the entire podcast episode here.
Oh, and I don’t know if I mentioned it here before, but my book is ready now and will be released on the 8th of September. It’s being published by the Takshashila Institution.
You can pre-order the book on Amazon. For some reason, the Kindle India store doesn’t have a facility to pre-order, so if you live in India and want to read the book on Kindle, you’ll have to wait until the 8th of September. Kindle stores elsewhere already allow you to pre-order. Follow the link above.