Data from CIES Football Observatory has provided some fresh insights into the club’s financial valuation in terms of the West Ham squad – revealing Declan Rice alone accounts for a quarter of the squad’s value.
Indeed, the data suggests that Declan Rice is the 26th most valuable player in world football in a staggeringly positive assessment of Rice’s true worth and potential to improve.
According to analysis from football.london, CIES ‘uses an algorithm designed to take in a number of factors to assess the transfer value of players across the globe’.
Those factors have caused a value of between £50 to £70 million to be bandied around the West Ham enforcer’s name.
Consequentially, that renders him the sixth most valuable English footballer in the sport.
In the wider context of CIES’ analysis of English footballers’ value, only the likes of Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, Harry Kane, Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold are valued higher than Rice.
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Suddenly, the claim from West Ham co-owner David Sullivan who stated it would require a bid in excess of £100 million to land Rice may have some credence.
It seems any suitor would need to financially move heaven and earth to afford West Ham’s gargantuan internal valuation of their star midfielder in what would represent a revolutionary club-record sale – one that could go so far as to have positive long-term financial implications for the club.
David Moyes has previously claimed that it would cost “Bank of England money” to prize Rice away from the London Stadium, and looks increasingly justified with such a claim.
