July 5 – How much is a player worth and will he do the job required are the perennial questions facing club owners and managers. There is no exact calculation that answers either of these questions for buyers, and no guarantee of value for money. A new player ratings tool might go some of the way to providing at least peace of mind to those splashing the cash.
The CIES Football Observatory has extended its online data services with a ratings module that provides exclusive statistics on players and calculates a transfer value.
The service is available on a consultancy basis only and covers players in the big-5 European leagues in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The ratings module takes into account that a wealthier club will generally have to pay more to sign a player and the transfer value calculated corresponds to the type of team most likely interested in buying the player. “The specific price per recruiter club is only available on a consultancy basis,” says CIES.
Dr Raffaele Poli, head of the CIES Football Observatory, said: “This development is a crucial step towards our recognition as the global leader in the scientific assessment of the transfer value of professional footballers. The tool will allow us to further highlight the accuracy of the algorithm developed.”
Key to the player value calculation are the performance levels of players which CIES – categorised in the database as rigour, recovery, distribution, take on, chance creation and shooting. The stats are used to create an index and ranking of the players, Stats are taken from OptaPro and cover the last 1,000 minutes played by the footballer.
The database also allows professional users to give their opinion on the transfer value estimated by the algorithm and whether they believe it is lower, equal or greater than the real market price.
And if the buyer is still undecided, the online systems contains data on the career path of a player and the number of league matches played at adult level. “The level of experience of each player is then compared to the average measured at the same age for big-5 league footballers of the same position,” says CIES.
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