How the most expensive transfer of all time could save English football.

On the 7th of August 2017, Football changed.

After months of rumours and speculation across the European Continent, Paris Saint Germain - fuelled by the billions of Qatari Oil Tycoon Nasser Al Khelaifi - activated Barcelona’s believed to be unpayable release clause for Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior.

The transfer fee alone - €222 million - engulfed the previous world record transfer fee, of €89.3 million Manchester United paid to resign Paul Pogba from Juventus 367 days earlier.

The total cost of the Brazilian’s services could rise up half a billion euros, assuming Neymar honours his €45 million a year five year contract with the six time French league champions.

In the weeks following the Neymar transfer, transfer fees sky rocketed as Europe’s billionaire chairmen began conducting business.

Barcelona responded quickly to losing their star man by purchasing 20-year-old Ousmane Dembélé from Borussia Dortmund for £112 million and bidding £114 million for Liverpool man Phillipe Coutinho, only to ultimately be rejected by the reds.

The bidding continued with Arsenal targeting AS Monaco forward Thomas Lemar for £94 million, but PSG had already gone with a loan move (worth £165 million) for Lemar’s teammate Kylian Mbappé and deflated the gunners’ transfer strategy.

Since the Premier League sold their television rights to Sky and BT for £5.136 billion in 2015, all the clubs in the Premier League have become significantly wealthier.

To put into context how significant the increase in revenue has been in the last few years, 14 out of the 20 current premier league clubs broke their transfer record this summer.

The Neymar deal made huge waves in the balance of transfer fees, almost as if every price had been doubled, and massive acquisitions like Gylfi Sigurdsson to Everton for £45 million certainly raised eyebrows around the world.

But these recent spikes in fees could be a positive too, as it could push for English clubs too invest more towards their own youth production programs instead of buying high.

Teams outside the top six don’t want to spend over the odds and possibly risk putting their club in financial danger, as well as have to worry about FFP regulations.

England are currently in a very strong position for youth level football, being U17 World Champions, U19 European Champions and U20 World Champions (the last team to win all the competitions in the younger age groups was Brazil in 1953).

If clubs are forced to look more inwards rather than outward, it could mean we could be seeing more and more starlets in starting XIs going forward.

For example, Phil Foden of Manchester City is now in Pep Guardiola’s match day squad and Marcus Rashford has started more games than he has sat out this season.

If the transfer fees continue to inflate, the Premier League could be forced to revaluate spending and hopefully go for the cheaper, self-made options instead.