Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling named most valuable young player in Europe
Raheem Sterling's stock continues to soar as the Liverpool flyer is named European football's "most valuable young player" in a new study.
Read more: Raheem Sterling is the world's sixth most valuable player
The want-away winger is valued at £35m – £5m less than Manchester City's failed bid for the Liverpool youngster.
Sterling finishes ahead of Paris Saint-Germain's Marquinhos and Manchester United's Memphis Depay – given a weighted value of £28.3m and £23.9m respectively – as Europe's most valuable player aged under-21.
Despite Gareth Southgate's side early exit from the U-21 European Championships last month, English players are actually the most represented in the Soccerex value index of the 20 most valuable youngsters in Europe.
Player | Team | Value |
Raheem Sterling | Liverpool | £35m |
Marquinhos | PSG | £28.3m |
Memphis Depay | Manchester United | £23.9m |
Domenico Berrardi | Sassuolo/Juventus | £21.7m |
Jose Gimenez | Atletico Madrid | £21.5m |
Hakan Calhanoglu | Bayer Leverkusen | £19.5m |
Mateo Kovacic | Inter Milan | £18.6m |
Jose Gaya | Valencia | £18.4m |
Luke Shaw | Manchester United | £18.1m |
Aymeric Laporte | Athletic Bilbao | £17m |
Kurt Zouma | Chelsea | £16.2m |
Youri Tielemans | Anderlecht | £13.8m |
Aleksandar Mitrovic | Anderlecht | £12.9m |
Talisca | Benfica | £12.9m |
Emre Can | Liverpool | £12.1m |
John Stones | Everton | £12m |
Anthony Martial | AS Monaco | £11.3m |
Divock Origi | Liverpool | £10.9m |
Calum Chambers | Arsenal | £10.7m |
Hector Bellerin | Arsenal | £10.5m |
United's Luke Shaw, Everton's John Stones and Arsenal's Calum Chambers – all full England internationals but absent for the U-21s- are named in the list while Sterling's club mates Emre Can and Divock Origi join Chelsea's Kurt Zouma and Hector Bellerin of Arsenal as Premier League representatives.
The report, authored by former marketing officer of Barcelona and current chief executive of sports marketing firm Esteve Calzada on behalf of football business events organiser Soccerex, determines value by taking into account a player's age, position, current club, contract length, injury record, minutes played and other factors.
It states that English players may be over-priced – indeed it values Chambers and Shaw below the fees the defenders commanded last summer – as a result of Uefa's home grown player regulations.