The New Year didn’t start well for Barcelona; Luis Enrique’s side lost to David Moyes’ Real Sociedad on Sunday; the club sacked sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta; his assistant and club legend Carles Puyol resigned in process; and now the media are speculating over the future of the greatest footballer of this generation, Lionel Messi.

Will Messi leave Barcelona to join England Manchester Evening News claim that Manchester City have shown their interest in signing him, while Messi himself has sparked the rumours by following Chelsea, Thibaut Courtois and Felipe Luis on Instagram.

In case, he moves abroad, how much the buyer club have to pay for him We hear this ridiculous figures of Messi being having a €250m release clause, but we hardly know his actual market price, do we

The same apply for Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, two players who have been linked with a move to Manchester United, time and again. Recently, popular journalist Balague claimed that Manchester United could be prepared to bid around €150m for Bale, who allegedly has a contract of around €1bn. Ridiculous, isn’t it

The reality is something different. CIES Football Observatory has disclosed the list of the 120 big 5-league players with the highest transfer value. Let us take a look at the list of top 10 players:

Lionel Messi – €220mCristiano Ronaldo – €133mEden Hazard – €99mDiego Costa – €84mPaul Pogba – €72mSergio Aguero – €65mRaheem Sterling – €63mCesc Fabregas – €62mAlexis Sanchez – €61mGareth Bale – €60m

From this list, we can see, apart from Raheem Sterling, all the players in the top 10 positions of the rankings are only players under contract with teams that are still competing in the Champions League.

The transfer values are calculated using an exclusive algorithm developed on the basis of over 1,500 fee paying transfers occurred since 2009. The variables included in our exclusive econometric model refer to player performances (matches, goals, dribbles, etc.), their characteristics (age, position, contract duration, etc.), as well as competition level and results achieved by their teams (clubs and national sides).