Most expensive players 1978 in todays worth

[Red Pumpkin]

I visited my parents the other day. While looking through their book shelf I found an old football magazine from 1978, 45 years ago, that belongs to my father. The magazine is dedicated to the English divisions 1-4. Which players to look out for, tid bits about the managers, top scorers, the all time table and so on.

A couple of pages are dedicated to the most expensive transfers of all time involving English teams.

Top 5
Kevin Keegan 500.000£ (Liverpool > Hamburg)
Gordon McQueen 500.000£ (Leeds > Manchester United)
Kenny Dalglish 440.000£ (Celtic > Liverpool)
Ricardo Villa 370.000£ (Racing > Tottenham)
Graeme Souness 352.000 (Middlesbrough > Liverpool)

500.000£ in 1978 = 3.974.592£ in 2023

Not sure where I'm going with this but I guess I didn't suspect players to have gotten that much more expensive when you account for inflation. You don't get a center half from Moldova or Estonia for 4 million £ these days, never mind a decent center forward.

 

[Moriarty]

I visited my parents the other day. While looking through their book shelf I found an old football magazine from 1978, 45 years ago, that belongs to my father. The magazine is dedicated to the English divisions 1-4. Which players to look out for, tid bits about the managers, top scorers, the all time table and so on.

A couple of pages are dedicated to the most expensive transfers of all time involving English teams.

Top 5
Kevin Keegan 500.000£ (Liverpool > Hamburg)
Gordon McQueen 500.000£ (Leeds > Manchester United)
Kenny Dalglish 440.000£ (Celtic > Liverpool)
Ricardo Villa 370.000£ (Racing > Tottenham)
Graeme Souness 352.000 (Middlesbrough > Liverpool)

500.000£ in 1978 = 3.974.592£ in 2023

Not sure where I'm going with this but I guess I didn't suspect players to have gotten that much more expensive when you account for inflation. You don't get a center half from Moldova or Estonia for 4 million £ these days, never mind a decent center forward.

Joe Jordan signed for £350,000 also in 1978. Trevor Francis, if memory serves, went for £1,000,000 in 1979.

 

[Withnail]

It was never really to do with inflation. The TV money available now absolutely dwarfs any income a club could have made back then.

 

[Red Pumpkin]

Joe Jordan signed for £350,000 also in 1978. Trevor Francis, if memory serves, went for £1,000,000 in 1979.

True, Joe Jordan is in there for 350.000. Ossie Ardiles, World Champion for 335.000.

What happened between 1978 and 1979?! That's double the record in just 1 year.

 

[abundance]

Not sure where I'm going with this but I guess I didn't suspect players to have gotten that much more expensive when you account for inflation. You don't get a center half from Moldova or Estonia for 4 million £ these days, never mind a decent center forward.

Just some other points of reference:

Maradona from Barcelona to Napoli in 1984 was considered the most expensive transfer ever at the time.
Reportedly it cost around 13 billion italian lira, which translates to roughly 20 million euro adjusted for inflation.

Mid 80s, Serie A spending power comparision to the other top leagues was even more lopsided than Premier's nowadays, and a very expensive transfer between Serie A clubs back then would run around 5 to 7 billion lira, or 7 to 10 million euros adjusted.


So as a rule of thumb, football players have become 10 times more expensive in 40 years.

 

[Anduin]

It would be interesting to see what kind of revenue these clubs had back in 1978, just to put things into perspective. Less than £10m?

 

[Moriarty]

True, Joe Jordan is in there for 350.000. Ossie Ardiles, World Champion for 335.000.

What happened between 1978 and 1979?! That's double the record in just 1 year.

Dunno. I was shocked when we paid half a million for McQueen. I know clubs we reluctant to break the million pound barrier. The papers were full of the usual talk about no player being worth that, but Cloughie went ahead and set the pace.

 

[padr81]

I visited my parents the other day. While looking through their book shelf I found an old football magazine from 1978, 45 years ago, that belongs to my father. The magazine is dedicated to the English divisions 1-4. Which players to look out for, tid bits about the managers, top scorers, the all time table and so on.

A couple of pages are dedicated to the most expensive transfers of all time involving English teams.

Top 5
Kevin Keegan 500.000£ (Liverpool > Hamburg)
Gordon McQueen 500.000£ (Leeds > Manchester United)
Kenny Dalglish 440.000£ (Celtic > Liverpool)
Ricardo Villa 370.000£ (Racing > Tottenham)
Graeme Souness 352.000 (Middlesbrough > Liverpool)

500.000£ in 1978 = 3.974.592£ in 2023

Not sure where I'm going with this but I guess I didn't suspect players to have gotten that much more expensive when you account for inflation. You don't get a center half from Moldova or Estonia for 4 million £ these days, never mind a decent center forward.

Football inflation is vastly different to non football inflation and has more to do with the tv money. Of all people to expand on this that Tomkins dude who supports Liverpool probably champions the best method where he relates spending in England to the current tv deals and everything correlates and fits much better than with non football inflation.

 

[Ole'sattheWheel]

Look at those vs the % of club revenue against now and you'll have more comparable figures