Having been nominated as official trade guru this season the Commish has asked me to collate some info and present some stats so we can review the official trade list. Now I do have a bunch of what appear to me be meaningless stats which I will log here in the hope that someone can make some sense of it and how it relates to our official pricing structure. Now the biggest sample we have is age 0 players and it's these that I'll list 1st.


There were in total 40 age 0 players available costing at total at auction of 25308k which works out around 632k per age 0 player. This gives an average cost per SL for all age 0 players of almost 80k. Now this figure also includes multi-position players which skews the info somewhat as these are more expensive and were never factored in to the original trade list.

The figures without are : Players = 32
Total Cost = 17849k
Cost per player = 558k
Cost per SL = 70k approx

The current trade price table is as follows
0 7 570
0 8 680
0 9 790

The averages for each age group at auction this season not including Multi were

0 7 490
0 8 590
0 9 620

Now if anyone can make any sense of all this then you're a better man than me. It does seem to suggest that prices for age 0 players on our current list are a little bit higher than they should be with the difference per SL on the old list 110k.


Here's a look at how the trade price table for last year looks compared to the simple calculation based on averages at auction this year

Old List
0 5 350
0 6 460
0 7 570
0 8 680
0 9 790
0 10 900
0 11 1020
0 12 1140
0 13 1260
0 14 1380
0 15 1500

Auction List

0 5 350
0 6 420
0 7 490
0 8 560
0 9 630
0 10 700
0 11 770
0 12 840
0 13 910
0 14 980
0 15 1050

Anyone like to help me out a little and give me some thoughts ?

I'll post some thoughts on other levels later although the samples are much smaller.

One quick comment - 620k for a 0/9 is too cheap. A 3rd division team would have to pay 200k + train him 4 times, which at 100k per TP makes 600k. And then there's the possibility of extra 25k (4 times) if training somebody else.

One reason they go cheap in auctions is that it's a gamble as to which player to go for and you can get lucky.

...just to add to Steve's comment (and add to the difficulty of the exercise) - how do you assess potential?

If buying a 0/9 player at auction he obviously has the ability to grow to 0/21. If buying a 0/9 from a 3rd Div club he will have started as a standard 0/5 apprentice who has been trained up to 0/9 - this will have used a minimum of 2 TP but this player could only reach 0/17

Obviously there could be a difference in COST (which can usully be measured accurately) and VALUE (how much someone is willing to pay to acquire something)

Supply and demand, macro v micro economics - never going to be a simple definitive answer/exercise but any guideline to price ranges that you (or anyone else comes up with) will be useful in negotiations and especially useful for newbies.

Good luck

A small, but I think Important point about the stats.

The 'Winning Bid' for all players at auction is always 1K more than the second highest bid. So "what people are willing to pay" on average, is actually higher than the stats above, you get me?

So using Auction prices might not be the best way to Evaluate a Guide Price Table.

Though it is interesting to see the stats displayed, and thanks to Sparky (Mark) for all his Statytishuning this season , I have to agree that it is difficult to see what use they (the numbers above) could be put to.

Guide prices would probably be better being evaluated from Trades. The problem with this is that very few trades are Players for Cash, trades are never that simple. This is probably due to, and I'm sure we've all been there, negotiations always seem to end with "Chuck in 2CP's and it's a deal!"

...but TP are FREE... so 200K + (4x25K training slots)=300K for a D3 team to get to 0/9 and he'll finish the season as a 1/17, but you can pay the extra 320K, in this example, for a guy who'll finish 1/20 and be a little less of a liability along the way!

Can you send some of that FREE TP my way please, Graeme?

Don't be greedy now Steven, you haven't even started spending the 40 you got last week, for free!

Interesting thread this topic.

Keen to read Mr Boland's season 19 age 0 price update here.

With Season 19 nearing its end, I wonder if we can revise this discussion and see what has happened with age 0 trades compared to age 0 auction players.

I must admit I don't have a great deal to add to last years figure and now using the PAAP figures I've managed to break it all down further anyway. I will post an updated PAAP list for all age groups and SL later both on here and on the blog so that if anyone wants to cut and paste for reference next season they can do.


This season there were 44 age 0 players compared to last seasons 40. The total cost this season for all 44 was 27555 compared to last seasons 25308. The average last season was 632k per player against this seasons 626k. Last season the cost per SL was 80k this season 76k. Bear in mind this figure is for all players including multi-position. To be honest there's very little difference between the 2 seasons.


The other major stat looked at last season was the cost of non multi-position players for each age group.

Last season a 0/9 was on average 620, this season 630 against trade list value 790
Last season a 0/8 was on average 590, this season 550 against trade list value 680
Last season a 0/7 was on average 490, this season 495 against trade list value 570

No huge differences this season although prices still going for well under trade list value. The one thing that may have affected the price of 0/8 players which has the sharpest drop is the increase in available 0/9 players. Season 18 there were 12 but in season 19 there were 19.

Like we said last year, probably not the best comparison for using with trade list but it does let us see that prices are remaining reasonably consistent.

Interesting thread this topic.

Keen to read Mr Boland's next Stat-installment!