Agency Report –
Bratislava – Germany captain Joshua Kimmich said he was baffled by soaring transfer sums in professional football but noted that players had little influence over the trend.
Kimmich, 30, spoke ahead of Germany’s World Cup qualifier in Slovakia after Bayern Munich honorary president Uli Hoeness this week criticized recent transfer spending as insane.
“It is hard to grasp, for us players as well as for normal fans, how much money is paid for a player,” Kimmich said. He added, however, that the figures were ultimately set by supply and demand: “At the end of the day, it is the market that determines the price.”
Hoeness on Tuesday called the amount of money that changed hands in the summer window “absolutely crazy,” adding: “At some point, the public will say: ‘Are they completely out of their minds?'”
English champions Liverpool paid €150 million ($175 million) each for Germany’s Florian Wirtz and Sweden’s Alexander Isak. Newcastle United signed Nick Woltemade from VfB Stuttgart for €90 million, beating Bayern Munich, which had dropped out of the bidding. Bayern had also unsuccessfully tried to land Wirtz.
According to FIFA, men’s professional football clubs spent a record $9.76 billion on international transfers in the latest window.
Kimmich said the Premier League’s financial strength meant the spiral was unlikely to end soon. “With ownership and TV money, they can apparently pull these sums out of their sleeve quite easily,” he said.
