2017: The year football went from a beautiful game to a caricature of its worst excesses

Football is theatre, that much has always been obvious; but it’s also business. And though the rules of the game haven’t changed much on-field since 16th century Etonians codified the random kicking of an inflated pigskin, off the field the game has been in constant evolution. This summer has demonstrated, once again, that football is as much about ritual performances of capitalist peacocking as it is about twenty-two men going head to head.

As the transfer window creaks closed today, it is worth reflecting on an historic summer. Neymar’s £200m transfer from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain more than doubled the world transfer record and created a domino of wildly inflated transfers – including 20-year-old Ousmane Dembele’s £135.5m move from Borussia Dortmund to the Catalan club – that is still rippling out across the world. Barca are currently courting Philippe Coutinho, who joined Liverpool from fellow giants Inter for a paltry £8.5m in 2013. The mooted transfer fee for Coutinho in 2017 is £138m.