MUMBAI: Once the world’s highest paid footballer, Alan Shearer knows the weight of the price tag. But the Englishman, now 46, believes that no footballer is worthy of such amounts of money.
“I was the world’s most expensive player in 1996, for £15 million and people went, ‘Wow! He’s not worth that.’ No individual is worth that,” said Shearer during ‘The Football Movement’ event, organised by India on Track and Premier League, in Mumbai on Friday.
“Football is not in the real world when it comes to transfer fees. It’s only a matter of time before the world record fee is broken again. It’s incredible. It’s never, ever justified.”
Even though transfer fees have grown leaps and bounds — Paul Pogba went from Juventus to Manchester United for £89.3 million in 2016 — since Shearer’s in 1996, his Premier League record for the most number of goals (260) still holds. Shearer got to play for boyhood club Newcastle United and went on to become one of the club’s legends. But with the Premier League, and indeed most European Leagues, rolling in the big bucks now, loyalty has become a dispensable attribute.
“Football is a business,” said the striker-turned-commentator. “Loyalty and football sometimes don’t seem to work. There is very little loyalty left whether that’s from players, managers, owners or clubs. I went to play for the football club that I supported, that I loved, and I have no regrets in doing that.”
The biggest victims of football’s mercenary streak, according to Shearer, are the managers. With club owners’ growing impatience with results and players growing in power, the managers have drawn the short straw. The latest example of this was Claudio Ranieri, who was sacked as the Leicester City manager a few months after leading the team to a fairytale Premier League title run.
“It was terribly disappointing to see what had gone on, it’s plainly obvious that something had gone on in that Leicester dressing room where the players and manager had a falling out. The Liverpool game (which Leicester won 3-1) tells everyone that.
“The unfortunate thing is that you cannot fire 20-25 players. Someone has to take the rap and always that’s the manager. Players have got a lot of power, whether we like that or not. They are backed up by huge contracts. It happened to Ranieri this season, it happened to (Jose) Mourinho last season. If it can happen to one of the biggest and best managers in the world, it can happen to anyone.”
Shearer himself flirted with going down the managerial route when he was given the player-coach role at Newcastle in the 2005-06 season. But the hardy Geordie is happier now calling the game from the commentator’s booth. And he’s not afraid of saying as he sees it.
deeptipatwardhan@newindianexpress.com