Published: 3 September, 2015
by STEVE BARNETT

MOVE over Trevor Francis because I can proudly confirm that I’m worth £1million, and I didn’t need a dodgy perm or short shorts to get where I am. 

Hell, I might even be worth more. I can tie the laces on my football boots all on my own, I have the tekkers to shin the ball over the bar from three-yards and I’m more one-footed than a flamingo doing the Can-Can. Oh, and I’m British – so make that nearer £5million. 

If Tuesday’s transfer deadline day taught us anything it is this: being averagely average is extraordinary lucrative. How else can you explain lower league veteran Bradley Johnson being worth £6million? Or Jacob Butterfield and his one England Under-21s cap worth £4million? 

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Derby’s two new recruits are completely useless. I’m just not convinced that they’re seven-figures worth of footballing fantasticness. 

In a world of add-ons and knock-ons, however, they fit right in. Because if you’re willing to pay more than £36million for a 19-year-old uncapped at international level, chucking in a bumper bonus cash clause along the way just in case he goes on to win the Ballon d’Or, then you’re effectively saying that nowadays anything under £10million is pocket change. Coinage that you should be able to find rummaging down the back of your sofa when you suddenly realise that you’re out of milk and toilet paper and there’s still three days left until pay day. 

Think about it, the average draw for the Wednesday night lotto is £2.5million, which means you’d have to win it twice just to afford an average Championship player. You’d have to win a EuroMillions rollover to buy Nacer Chadli. You could get him to come over and do all your house work – providing you could stop him rolling around your carpet long enough. 

Football purists will argue that as the money isn’t coming out of my pocket why am I moaning? But the money does come out of my pocket, and yours. And every other supporter who dares to dream of actually seeing their team play live. 

As ticket prices soar you’ll have to win the lottery just to get to a game – and that’s assuming you can even afford to do a lucky dip in the first place. 

But do you want to know the worst thing about football’s Micky Mouse market? The absolutely rock bottom line that should make us all scream enough is enough? It’s when the very best players are so overpriced that the excitement of transfer deadline day and Sky’s breaking news strap is so strapped that Emmanuel Adebayor and Glenn Murray dominate the headlines!