It is official Robbie Keane is back at Tottenham. After failing to make the regular squad Keane has opted to leave Liverpool and to return to Tottenham. Tottenham will pay 13 million Euros for Keane, who they sold to Liverpool for 21 million Euros 6 months ago. That makes 34 million Euros for a player in one year. Just a reminder this is not Kaka, Ronaldo, or Zidane. Keane is an Ireland international, but would probably fail to make the national team of lets say France, Germany or Italy. Keane scored 5 goals in 19 appearances as a striker for Liverpool not exactly a mind blowing statistic. Yet two teams paid the astronomical sum of 34 million Euros.
The transfer of Keane fits the picture of a transfer market spun out of control. Manchester City just paid 20 million Euros for Nigel de Jong a player, who Hamburg paid 2 million Euros for 2 years ago. Yes, Nigel de Jong is an international for Holland, but he was not even a central player at Hamburg, which compensated his loss by signing an unknown Frenchman (Mikael Tavares) for next to nothing from Slavia Prague.
Another transfer that shows the over spending of Premier League clubs is the transfer of the German super talent Savio Nsereko. The player was one of the outstanding players for the German U-19 squad that won the Uefa European Championship last summer. His transfer to West Ham for 11 million Euros comes as a shock, however, in comparison Timo Gebhardt who was more vital for the success of the Germans, and scored 5 goals in 17 matches for 1860 in 2. Bundesliga (compared to Nsereko's 3 goals in 22 matches for Brescia in the Seria B) was transfered to Stuttgart from 1860 Munich for 3 million Euros.
Seeing that there is a financial crisis going on and that Great Britain especially has been hit by the credit crunch, one should think that high risk transfers are going out of fashion. Indeed, the transfer market has slowed down but there are still many transfers that as such make no sense. Many players are brought in as a quick fix and will not make an impact at their new club. The example of Kevin-Prince Boateng comes to mind. Boateng was a highly rated talent at Hertha Berlin, he was bought by Tottenham for 7 million Euros just to be send for free to Borussia Dortmund a year and a half later. Gordon Strachan manager of Celtic Glasgow has suggested to put a cap on clubs spending. Perhaps, a cap on how many players a club can have on their squad per season might be another idea. This way clubs would have to think twice if they want to bring in a player or not. Senseless transfers that are designed to weaken the opposition would also be a thing of the past. Or perhaps one of the major clubs in England just need to go bankrupt to open the eyes of the others.
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