Brazil icon Ronaldo would be ‘most expensive player ever’ at £383m, while Maradona could cost £305m in today’s market
A COMPUTER has worked out how much the biggest transfers in history would cost in today's prices and has named Ronaldo Nazario as the most expensive player of all time.
Taking into account a wide variety of factors, most crucially Neymar's mind boggling £196million transfer to Paris Saint-Germain five years ago, the original Ronaldo's move from Barcelona to Inter Milan is valued at £383m if it happened in 2021.
Coming in behind the Brazil striker's 1997 switch is Diego Maradona's signing for Napoli in 1984 - which would be worth £305m today.
Italian market analysts came up with an algorithm to determine modern day transfer fees for top players of bygone eras.
The first thing they took into account was how reasonable each fee was at the time, with Ronaldo's £27million deal considered a bargain.
Performance data such as goals scored and age are also thrown into the mix before the key multiplier: dubbed the 'Neymarizer'.
This is a tool that ups the adjusted price by roughly 220 per cent, the theory being that Neymar was only really worth around £84m before leaving for £186m.
In just one year at Barcelona, Ronaldo had smashed 47 goals in 49 games to earn him the Ballon d'Or and a world-record transfer.
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Likewise, Maradona was a superstar before he arrived amid much fanfare in Italy, going on to win a World Cup and two Serie A titles during his time with Napoli.
PlayRatings have even hypothesised that his market value at the end of the Scudetto-winning 1986/87 season topped £390m.
Focused on Serie A's biggest deals, the Neymarizer reckons both Christian Vieri and Michel Platini would today clock in at £296m.
In 1999, striker Vieri signed for Inter from Lazio with Juventus snapping up Saint-Etienne star Platini back in 1982.
Unsurprisingly, Marco van Basten also features with the Dutch star costing £291m if he completed his 1987 move to AC Milan from Ajax now.
The list is completed with Gabriel Batistuta's 2000 signing for Roma actually worth £249m were it to happen in 2021.
And Gonzalo Higuain's controversial £85m switch from Napoli to Juventus in 2016, a year before Neymar's market changing transfer, comes in at a mega £234m today.
Using the same idea, we have calculated what Alan Shearer's world record £15m move from Blackburn to Newcastle may be worth today - approximately £182m.