Dele Alli is World’s Most Valuable U-21 Player

Tottenham Hotspur and England midfielder Dele Alli has been identified as the most valuable Under-21 player in world football by this year’s Soccerex 20 Under-21 report by Prime Time Sport.

Alli is valued at £73.6m (€82.6m) in the Soccerex study, which uses Prime Time Sport’s Football Value Index, to rank footballers born on or after 1st January 1996.

The 21-year-old English star, who was named the PFA Young Player of the Year for the second season in a row this April, comfortably pips AS Monaco’s Kylian Mbappé to the accolade due to the number of minutes played for his club – Alli clocked an impressive 3,044 minutes, more than double that of the Frenchman’s 1,499.

Mbappé, who is valued at £55m (€61.7m) after a standout season for the 2016/17 Ligue 1 champions, scored the first hat-trick of his first-team career in the 7-0 rout of Stade Rennais in the Coupe de la Ligue round of 16 – the first hat-trick scored by any Monaco player in the competition since Sonny Anderson in 1997 – and has caught the eye of Arsenal, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain this transfer window.

Borussia Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembélé completes the top three, after the Bundesliga Rookie of the Year was valued at £54.3m (€60.9m).

The Soccerex Report utilises a Football Value Index compiled by Prime Time Sport and takes into account the player’s age, position, current club, contract length, market value perception, international caps, minutes played, goals, injuries and technical quality from a variety of sources to arrive at a final valuation.

Two of England’s rising stars, Dele Alli (1st) and Marcus Rashford (7th), make the Top 10 of the Soccerex study.
The valuation of Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli has risen considerably since last year, where he was valued at £28.8m (€34.1m), on the back of consistently high standards for club and country and confirms what we saw last season, that Mauricio Pochettino may have picked up a bargain, with the midfield talisman joining from Milton Keynes Dons for just £5m back in January 2015.

Alli has since gone to become a mainstay on the Three Lions’ team sheet, with 19 appearances and two goals since his senior debut in 2015.

Meanwhile, Marcus Rashford’s value, double than that of last year at £36.2m (€40.6m), is likely to soar again after cementing his place with Jose Mourinho’s Red Devils.

The rest of the top 20 is made up of players from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ivory Coast, Colombia and Portugal.

French, German and Spanish players led the way in the top 20, each with 15 per cent hailing from the European countries, highlighting the strength of youth development in the country.

The top 10 young players will all be plying their trade in the Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga, Ligue 1 or Serie A, demonstrating the financial muscle and stature of the big five leagues.

Overall, the leading 20 players have a weighted combined value of £655.7m (€738.1m) million with an average value of over £32.8m (€36.9m) per player.

The year’s list of world football’s most valuable Under-21 players is dominated by strikers and attacking midfield players although AC Milan’s goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma £36m (€40.5m) did make the list, coming in ninth position.

The highest ranked natural defender was Theo Hernández, who came 13th and has just joined Spanish giants Real Madrid this summer.

Commenting on this year’s Soccerex 20 Under-21 Report by Prime Time Sport, Soccerex’s David Wright said: “This report demonstrates the hugely talented pool of players under the age of 21 available across the globe.

“Ultimately, the lifeblood of any successful club is the players they are able to develop and nurture and the report identifies the premium that clubs place on this kind of exciting young talent.”

Established in 1995, Soccerex is the leading provider of business events for the global football community. Bringing together key industry decision makers from the world of football, Soccerex provides a unique commercial environment where delegates can benefit from exclusive business opportunities, networking and bespoke educational content.