Liverpool Echo reckons Kenny Dalglish is worth £77m in today’s money

Posted by

Was Dalglish a better footballer than Luis Suarez?

Liverpool Echo writer Kristian Walsh reckons that if arguably our greatest player of all time Kenny Dalglish was playing today, he’d have a transfer value of around £77m.

Walsh bases the claim on the monumental fees spent on the likes of Angel di Maria, James Rodriguez and our former hero Luis Suarez, and the fact that in his prime; Dalglish was a truly sensational footballer.

Suarez went for a reported £75m in the summer, but has achieved less than our great Scot, who bagged a European Cup final winner, and won ten top division titles with Celtic and Liverpool.

Here’s some of what Walsh wrote:

Dalglish moved to Liverpool in the summer of 1977 for a fee of £440,000.

Going by the current rate of inflation, he would be worth £2.7m.

He was regarded as one of Britain’s finest talents, but he was yet to win three European Cups or be named Footballer of the Year twice. And, as big as Celtic were, he would go on to become an icon for one of the world’s biggest, and most successful,  football clubs.

Today’s game is littered with these sort of players but only the best are available at the premium price – a price that continues to rise. Rui Costa moved to AC Milan for £30m in 2001; Kaka went to Real Madrid for £56m in 2009; James Rodriguez cost even more this summer at £63m.

A comparison with Suarez seems lazy, but it also seems the most useful when deciding what Dalglish would be worth. Both have been voted Player of the Year, both have hit 31 in a season. Dalglish played at more World Cups than the Uruguayan, but had an impact in fewer; Suarez is yet to illuminate European football, while Dalglish scored the winner in the European Cup final in his first season with the Reds.

But then, Dalglish never bit somebody. A laboured point, possibly, but one worth making nevertheless – Suarez was regarded as problematic by some, whereas Dalglish was the epitome of everything the Reds did well in the 1970s and 1980s.

A figure of £75m sounds about fair, with an extra £2m for keeping his teeth to himself. So £77m it is – just shy of the world transfer record.

More Stories Kenny Dalglish