After leaving Barcelona in order to escape the shadow of Lionel Messi, Neymar has beaten the Argentine in one measure – being rated the world’s highest value player.
The CIES Football Observatory has published its annual rankings of how much players in the top five European leagues – the Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A and the Bundesliga – are worth, based on factors including age, position, contract duration, performance and international status.
The list, published every January, ranks Neymar top, with a value of €213million, or £188million, while Messi trails in second, worth €202.2m (£178.5m).
Harry Kane’s increasing status in world football is reflected by being ranked third by the Football Observatory, with the Tottenham Hotspur striker valued at €194.7m (£172m).
Kane leads an impressive showing by the Premier League on the list, with five of the top 10 players coming from the English top division. There are two from La Liga, two from Ligue 1 and one from Serie A.
Dele Alli, Kane’s team mate for Tottenham and England, is sixth on the list, with the play maker valued at €171.3m (£151.25m). Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba are ranked seventh, eighth and tenth most valuable respectively.
According to the list, although Manchester United spent £89m on Pogba, then £75 on Lukaku last summer, they actually got a good deal with both – the French midfielder is valued at £130m, and the Belgian striker at £145.5m.
There are two PSG players in the top four – as well as Neymar, Kylian Mbappe makes a strong showing, valued just shy of £170m, having joined the Parisians from Monaco last summer.
The other La Liga player alongside Messi in the top 10 is Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann, who is priced at £132m, while the most valuable Serie A star is judged as being Paulo Dybala of Juventus, who is given a tag of £154m and is fifth on the list.
There are some big names further down the table, most notably Ballon D’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo, who surprisingly is only the 49th most valuable player in Europe, say the Football Observatory.
Perhaps due to his age – 32 – or his below par performances this season, the Real Madrid star is valued at £71m – a drop of more than £40m on his January 2017 valuation, and nearly £10m less than Real paid for him initially.
Philippe Coutinho, who has just completed his Spanish-record £145m move from Liverpool to Barcelona, is also fairly lowly at 16th. He is valued at £108.6m – a substantial amount less than what the Catalan giants had to shell out.
THE TOP 100 MOST VALUABLE FOOTBALLERS IN THE WORLD
Neymar (PSG) – £188m
Lionel Messi (Barcelona) – £178.5m
Harry Kane (Tottenham) – £172m
Kylian Mbappe (PSG) – £170m
Paulo Dybala (Juventus) – £154m
Dele Alli (Tottenham) – £151.25m
Kevin de Bruyne (Manchester City) – £148m
Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United) – £145.5m
Antoine Griezmann (Atletico Madrid) – £132m
Paul Pogba (Manchester United) – £130m
Leroy Sane (Manchester City) – £124m
Mo Salah (Liverpool) – £124m
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) – £122m
Luis Suarez (Barcelona) – £113.6m
Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) – £112m
Philippe Coutinho (Barcelona) – £108.6m
Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) – £108.25m
Eden Hazard (Chelsea) – £105.6m
Gonzalo Higuain (Juventus) – £99.8m
Alvaro Morata (Chelsea) – £95.3m
Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich) – 95m
Mauro Icardi (Inter Milan) – £92.2m
Roberto Firmino (Liverpool) – £91m
Lorenzo Insigne (Napoli) – £90m
Samuel Umtiti (Barcelona) – £89.6m
Saul Niguez (Atletico Madrid) – £88.5m
Bernardo Silva (Manchester City) – £87.2m
Sergio Aguero (Manchester City) – £87.1m
Christian Eriksen (Tottenham) – £86.8m
Alexandre Lacazette (Arsenal) – £86.1m
Marc-Andre ter Stegen (Barcelona) – £85m
Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona) – £84.7m
John Stones (Manchester City) – £82.7m
Ederson (Manchester City) – £82.5m
Eric Dier (Tottenham) – £82.1m
Edinson Cavani (PSG) – £81.7m
Dries Mertens (Napoli) – £79.3m
Koke (Atletico Madrid) – £78.5m
Yannick Carrasco (Atletico Madrid) – £78m
N’Golo Kante (Chelsea) – £77.1m
Timo Werner (RB Leipzig) – £77.1m
Kyle Walker (Manchester City) – £76.9m
Tiemoue Bakayoko (Chelsea) – £76.2m
Georginio Wijnaldum (Liverpool) – £75.5m
Isco (Real Madrid) – £75.4m
Ciro Immobile (Lazio) – £75.2m
Nicolas Otamendi (Manchester City) – £74.8m
Anthony Martial (Manchester Utd) – £72.4m
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – £71m
Fabinho (Monaco) – £70m
Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester City) – £68.3m
Radja Nainggolan (Roma) – £68m
Toni Kroos (Real Madrid) – £67.1m
Antonio Rudiger (Chelsea) – £66.5m
Jan Oblak (Atletico Madrid) – £66m
Son Heung-Min (Tottenham) – £64.1m
Thomas Lemar (Monaco) – £64m
Ivan Rakitic (Barcelona) – £63.8m
Marquinhos (PSG) – £63.4m
Elseid Hysaj (Napoli) – £62.2m
Andrea Belotti (Torino) – £62.1m
Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund) – £61.2m
Hector Bellerin (Arsenal) – £60.5m
Davinson Sanchez (Tottenham) – £60.5m
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Liverpool) – £60.2m
Marcos Alonso (Chelsea) – £60.2m
Granit Xhaka (Arsenal) – £60m
Niklas Sule (Bayern Munich) – £59m
Sadio Mane (Liverpool) – £58.5m
Shkodran Mustafi (Arsenal) – £57.5m
Federico Chiesa (Fiorentina) – £57.5m
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Borussia Dortmund) – £57.1m
Edin Dzeko (Roma) – £56.7m
Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal) – £56.7m
Julian Draxler (PSG) – £56.2m
Florian Thauvin (Marseille) – £55.8m
Casemiro (Real Madrid) – £55.5m
Marco Verratti (PSG) – £55.4m
Corentin Tolisso (Bayern Munich) – £55.3m
Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli) – £54.75m
Thibaut Courtois (Chelsea) – £54.7m
Cesar Azpilicueta (Chelsea) – £54.1m
Nabil Fekir (Lyon) – £53.6m
Nemanja Matic (Manchester United) – £53.2m
Ivan Perisic (Inter Milan) – £51.5m
Sergio Busquets (Barcelona) – £51.5m
Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (Lazio) – £51.4m
Jemerson (Monaco) – £48.9m
Nathan Redmond (Southampton) – £48.5m
Piotr Zielinski (Napoli) – £48.3m
David Silva (Manchester City) – £48m
Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich) – £47m
Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham) – £46.5m
Marco Asensio (Real Madrid) – £45.2m
Gianluigi Donnarumma (AC Milan) – £45m
Harry Maguire (Leicester City) – £44.9m
Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool) – £44.8m
Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich) – £44.7m
Lorenzo Pellegrini (Roma) – £44.6m
Andreas Christensen (Chelsea) – £44.3m
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