Barcola’s Transfer Fee Made No Sense – Sagna

Former Arsenal defender Bacary Sagna has reacted to the financial state of football. This comes after Liverpool signed Bradley Barcola for a £123 million ($167m) move from Paris Saint-Germain.

Stressing that the Frenchman’s transfer fee is absolutely crazy, Sagna revealed that footballers will eventually start moving for 500 million pounds if care is not taken.

Bacary added that while Barcola is a young and talented player, the figure Liverpool paid made no sense.

His words, “Barcola is an amazing player but he’s young, he’s 24 now, he has proven himself at Paris and in Lyon previously but this has to stop.

He went for 123 million, no? That’s a lot of money if he’s evaluated now. I know that we can’t compare generations and I know the world is moving and economically it’s not the same.

Proportionally, yes it makes sense because you sell other players for 100 million and he’s better than them, but it doesn’t make sense.

They should have limit. For me it doesn’t remove anything on his quality, he’s a top player and I think he’s going to be good at Liverpool, but for me this is crazy, this is 123 million.

They should have a limit and they should set up a limit because in five years what’s going to happen? Players will leave for 500 million?

You know it’s football, a business, it’s good football became a business but any business going high also has its bad side and danger.

So to regulate football rules and football financial rules you have to be very smart because soon something like we saw with FIFA trying to sell the World Cup will happen and I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised because there is no limit, there is no financial rules anymore. Any player can leave for any kind of money.

There have to be rules and roots. When you were educated, you have 60 per cent from when you are little, you were grounded in that, and then of course you will develop yourself on the other 40. Football has to be the same.

The basics will never change if you start touching the most important things and you get trouble. When I see all the problems with FIFA being attacked by everyone, I’m not surprised. And this is the same for players.

Soon you will have players complaining and clubs complaining and clubs being out of the financial fair play, so top clubs will control it and you’ll have to bring other clubs that are not going to have the same quality.

The image rights will be damaged because if you don’t have the same quality, then you don’t have the same money, and when you start going down that path it is difficult to stop. We need to be careful.”