Opinion: How much is Dele Alli worth in today’s transfer market if Spurs sell up

With Dele’s days at Spurs looking numbered having fallen out of favour with Jose Mourinho, it seems as though he could leave in the near future.

In January 2021, CIES Football Observatory valued Dele at €30-40 million (£26.5-35.5 million).

However, we wanted to assess how much we believe Dele would be worth in today’s transfer market. We will look at the major factors that affect transfer value such as age, contract length, potential, performances and more.

Age

It is quite easy to forget how young Dele still is since he joined Spurs as a hugely talented 18-year-old for around £5 million pounds.

Now 24-years-old, he is still in the early stages of his football career and is arguably yet to reach his peak years which will only have a favourable result for Spurs when calculating Dele’s current worth.

Contract length

Dele is currently under contract with Spurs until summer 2024. Therefore, at the time of writing this article, he still has 3 ½ years on his current deal which means Spurs are in a strong negotiating position for his current value.

Even if Spurs were not to sell this window and were to look to sell in the summer of 2021, he would still have 3 years on his current deal and his value won’t deteriorate too much.

Potential

As previously mentioned, Dele is still only 24. He is still to hit his peak years for a player in his position and still has at least 8-10 years of potential playing time at the highest level.

This definitely needs to be factored heavily into his current market value as he still has so much more to give on his day.

Performances

Granted, Dele’s performances for the past 18 months have been out of sorts, but it the high levels of he consistently put in when he first broke onto the scene should not be forgotten.

Integral in MK Dons 4-0 win vs Manchester United and then his first three seasons in a Spurs shirt saw him win back to back to back PFA Young Player of the year awards and score 18 league goals in one season.

Dele also has knack of being a ‘big-game player’, scoring in many important games and performing to a high standard in the Champions League.

International recognition

Even though he hasn’t featured for England since 2019, Dele has 37 caps to his name and was a regular starter for Gareth Southgate at the 2018 World Cup.

This, along with 25 appearances in the Champions League and being an integral part of the side that reached the 2019 Champions League final, should be taken into account when calculating Dele’s current worth in the transfer market.

Commercial appeal

A minor, but a growing factor, when calculating a player’s current value. According to a report by Soccer.com, Dele’s shirts have sold more than any other footballers’ in the US state of Vermont.

This commercial appeal also increases the publicity of the club and will bring in revenue to whoever Dele plays for.

Dele has also raised his profile as a brand, collecting 7.1m followers on Instagram and has numerous sponsorship deals with Adidas and Boohoo which should be taken into account when calculating his current transfer value.

English Premium

A factor that haunts players/agents and buying clubs due to the premium demanded by selling clubs.

In recent years, transfer values for English players have soared due to expectation from the media and the increase for a certain number of homegrown players in Premier League squads.

Players with much less experience than Dele, such as Andy Carroll (reported £35m), Dominic Solanke (reported £19m) and Jordan Ibe (reported £15m), have fetched large sums across the years.

Spurs will feel that they are well within their rights to demand a significantly higher fee than the aforementioned when it comes to the former England man and two-time PFA Young Player of the Year award.

The conclusion – 

In conclusion, when you take into account all the above factors it can be easily argued that the CIES valuation of Dele could be on the low side.

We believe that, for a player of his age, with his past performances and other factors, Spurs should be fetching a value of circa £45-55 million (€50.5-62 million).

Related Topics