Significant drops have been seen in the value of players at top-notch Turkish clubs, such as Galataray’s Abdul Kader Keita, Elano and Arda Turan, Beşiktaş’s Bobo and Tabata, and Fenerbahçe’s Daniel Güiza, for whom remarkably high transfer fees were paid at the beginning of the season this year.The market value of Guiza fell from its pre-season 14 million euros to 12 million euros, while his teammate Alex de Souza’s value declined from 14 million euros to 10.6 million euros in the same period. The value of Galatasaray’s Elano was down from 12.5 million euros to 11 million euros, and the value of Keita decreased from 8 million euros to 7 million euros, while Galatasaray’s new captain Arda Turan’s transfer fee dropped from its previous level of 15 million euros to 13 million euros.
Apart from the drop in the value of the Turkish soccer market, the downward trend seen in the quality of the Turkish premier competition, the Süper Lig, has also become impossible to ignore. While the leading soccer clubs of the league like Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş, which are called the “Big Three,” spend millions of dollars on acquiring top players to strengthen their squads, Anatolian teams have to deal with great difficulties in their standoff with those clubs, as a huge financial and quality gap remains. The Anatolian teams which get the opportunity to play in European soccer contests after long struggles bid farewell to the contests either in the very first round or after climbing to the second round, at the latest.
The latest data from a German Web site, transfermarkt.de, also support this situation. While Europe’s big soccer clubs steadily increase the amount of money they allocate to marketing and the value of players on these teams constantly rises, the situation in the Turkish league is completely different. A recently released report from the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), for instance, only covers Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş from Turkey, not even mentioning any soccer clubs from Anatolia. On the list, Galatasaray, which continues its climb in the UEFA Europe League, is ranked 11th, up one from its previous ranking in 12th place. Fenerbahçe, on the other hand, moved up by 16 places and is ranked 33rd, while Beşiktaş was ranked 117th. Despite the rise in the IFFHS rankings, great drops were seen in the transfer fees of top Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe and Beşiktaş players. Moreover, the Turkish national team was eliminated from the 2010 World Cup as it could not qualify out of its group, which, had it been otherwise, could have had a positive impact on the Turkish player market along with a contribution to the advertising revenues to the national team.
Values of top players on the decline
The steep decline in the value of players mostly worry the soccer clubs themselves. Guiza, for whom Fenerbahçe paid 14 million euros last year in transfer fees, now has a value of 12 million euros. Fenerbahçe captain Alex’s value also decreased by some 3 million euros this year. Lugano’s transfer fee also fell from its previous level of 10.5 million euros to 9 million euros. Beşiktaş, creating a great disappointment with its elimination from the Champions League, also took its share from this declining trend in the market value of its players. Brazilian player Bobo’s transfer fee fell from 8 million euros at the beginning of the season to 7 million euros, partly due to his poor performance. Away from soccer for a long while due to an injury, Argentinean ace Delgado also suffered from a drop in his market value, from 8.5 million to 5 million euros.
According to the list on transfermarkt.de, the most valuable player in the league remained the same as at the beginning of the season this year. Galatasaray’s young Turan was ranked the most valuable soccer player in Turkey, even though his transfer fee decreased from 15 million euros at the beginning of the season to its current level of 13.3 million euros. Galatasaray’s defense player Servet Çetin, on the other hand, was one of the players to suffer the smallest decrease in market value. His 9 million euros transfer fee fell only to 8.1 million euros. Brazilian soccer players Elano and Keita, both of whom transferred in with high expectations, were also among the players with declining market values.
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