It is public knowledge that football is one of the most profitable professions in the world. Year on year, sponsors and TV companies commit hefty sums of money to football clubs making coaches, agents, and players even richer.
Football is a goal oriented sport, and the game will always be won by the team that scores the most goals. Therefore one could argue that the most important player on a football field is the man whose primary job it is to win you the game; the striker.
Basic economics teaches us that the more the demand for a commodity exceeds the supply, the more the price of that commodity surges.
The number of elite strikers in existence has been on the wane for many years; meaning clubs have to compete with their chequebooks regarding both transfer fees and wages to sign quality strikers, and this is why they tend to be the highest paid players.
The 2015/16 season saw some forwards attain some astronomical goal scoring tallies, with the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Jamie Vardy, Luis Suarez and Antoine Griezmann stealing the headlines time and time again.
However, this article focuses on those strikers who posted nearly embarrassing goal stats; costing their clubs millions of pounds over the course of the year and failing to deliver. Below are 6 of the most expensive striking flops in the season gone past:
4. Wayne Rooney
It is sad to see a striker as accomplished as ‘Wazza’ on this list, but the truth is that Wayne’s powers are on the wane, and Louis Van Gaal didn’t do him any favours by playing him in midfield.
His move further back on the field means the stats now read that Wayne Rooney gets £13 million a year, and scored 15 goals in all competitions costing Manchester United about £867k per goal as a result.