EVEN BEFORE THE transfer was completed this week, many people were asking why Raheem Sterling is valued so highly.

On Tuesday, it was confirmed that he would join Man City for an astronomical fee off £49 million (€70.6 million).

Sterling is clearly a promising talent, but has achieved little in the game so far, critics argue. So why are Man City willing to gamble so much money on someone who has yet to establish himself as a genuinely great player? Surely the 20-year-old winger, at the very least, doesn’t warrant a higher transfer fee than Sergio Aguero, Wayne Rooney, Alexis Sanchez and other top Premier League talents?

Moreover, why are a club with City’s exorbitant finances after signing Fabian Delph? There must be superior midfielders on offer, right?

Although his ability and potential should not be under-estimated, one hugely significant factor is Sterling being a homegrown player. Here’s a list of further important, relevant facts to consider, which should go some way towards explaining why players such as Sterling are more expensive than overseas stars of similar ability…

• Premier League clubs can have 25 senior players in their squad, eight of which have to be homegrown — a rule that has been in effect since the 2010-11 campaign. Additional U21 players of any nationality can also be included along with the main squad.
• A squad can contain a maximum of 17 overseas players and a minimum of three homegrown players. If this is the case, as it was with Chelsea last season, they can have no more than 20 senior players in their squad, causing a team to be potentially exposed when issues such as injuries, fatigue etc come into play. So essentially, it’s in every team’s interest to buy or develop several homegrown players, or risk having a fairly bare squad for the duration of the season.
• Before its implementation in the 2010-11 season, Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore explained: “The definition of home grown is trained for three years under the age of 21 by somebody in the English and Welsh professional system.” In other words, you don’t even have to be English to be considered homegrown — both Cesc Fabregas and James McCarthy are classified as ‘homegrown’.
• Sterling actually is counted as an U21 rather than a homegrown player this season, but he will nonetheless lift the burden on a squad that contains just four homegrown players, including the recently acquired Delph.
• There are a limited number of exceptional homegrown players and many of the most talented (e.g. Wayne Rooney) are invariably unavailable. Hence, when a player like Sterling — who is not yet world class by any means, but undoubtedly capable of playing at a high level — becomes available, clubs with a low number of homegrown footballers will naturally be especially keen to sign the individual in question, consequently causing the coveted star’s value to skyrocket to scarcely believable levels.
• While having a healthy number of homegrown players is important, it is not necessarily essential — Chelsea won the league with just three (Gary Cahill, Cesc Fabregas and John Terry), the minimum number required, last season. However, in addition to their squad of 20 senior players, they were also aided to an extent by U21 starlets such as Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Kurt Zouma.

h/t europeanleagues.com, Daily Mail.

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