. What better way to drum up immediate curiosity than borrowing someone else’s fame?
Now, with all this talk of sugar, the appeal of diving into the impending free-agent list on Transfermarkt and devolving into a sokkah version of Veruca Salt is a powerful one. “I want a Gareth Bale, Danny,” clubs may cry. “And I want a Cesc Fàbregas, and a Zlatan Ibrahimović.” And any such arrivals would be a positive, anything that would boost the league’s reputation right now would be.
This inevitably carries some level of sacrifice on the part of the signing beyond a standard relocation; acknowledgement that they are now not so much a footballer who resides on the game’s biggest stage and more a brand deployed on rescue missions to its fringes. Some simply are not ready to do this, and others demand a significant premium for doing so.