Facts can sometimes fly in the face of conventional wisdom. Football is supposedly awash with money like never before. At the same time, star players are global brands who generate all sorts of ancillary revenues, from shirt sales to sponsorships. And yet there is a curious trend emerging: clubs are shunning the mega-deal.

Between 1999, when the £30 million mark was first broken, and 2002, there were seven players who were bought for £30 million or more: Christian Vieri, LuÍs Figo, Zinédine Zidane, Hernán Crespo, Gianluigi Buffon, Rio Ferdinand and Ronaldo.

But in the past five years there has been only one £30 million switch: Andriy Shevchenko’s transfer to Chelsea last summer. That number could double if and when Carlos Tévez completes his move to Old Trafford, yet the fact remains that clubs no longer seem willing to break the bank to sign superstars.

Economists like to say that free markets rarely lie, which would suggest that there must be a reason. It cannot be a lack of superstars. One would not argue that, as a group, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaká, Ronaldinho, Tévez, Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Samuel Eto’o are inferior to the eight £30 million players cited above.

Is it a lack of cash? Not at the very top, of course. Although, to some degree, it may be that there are fewer “second-tier” clubs willing to splash out large amounts of money. Gone are the days when Lazio, Parma, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Borussia Dortmund and Valencia went head-to-head with the traditional European powers.

The gap between the Continent’s ten or so richest clubs and the rest has increased substantially. This has had a two-pronged effect. On the one hand, it means that there is less competition for the biggest names (which drives down demand and, therefore, prices). On the other hand, it means that signing a very expensive player carries that much more risk because there is a smaller resale market. In the past, you could spend £35 million on, say, Crespo (as Lazio did in the summer of 2000), knowing that he could be sold on for a decent sum, if necessary (£18 million in his case). Today, it is far more difficult to recoup a substantial part of your investment if your £30 million star does not work out or you are forced to sell.

So how does one explain this? Perhaps it is simply the fact that the big clubs who drive the high end of the market have learnt their lesson: there is a natural limit to a player’s value, no matter how great he may be.

An economist might call it a case of a market “becoming rational”. It is the idea that you can calculate to some degree how much a player is worth. Clubs have done this and they have come to realise that superstars are not all they are cracked up to be. That is part of the message in Michael Lewis’s classic Moneyball, the 2003 book that looked at baseball’s Oakland Athletics and their novel approach to determining the value of players. Moneyball analysed just why Oakland, a comparatively small club, could compete with teams such as the New York Yankees, whose wage bill was more than three times as great.

Football does not lend itself to the kind of statistical analysis seen in Moneyball, but a quick survey of the £30 million-plus gang shows that, in most cases, it can be argued that the buying clubs overpaid.

Here is a case-by-case look:

Vieri (£30 million, Lazio to Inter Milan): played six seasons, scored plenty (102 league goals), but injuries limited him to an average of 20.4 Serie A starts per season. Inter won no silverware with him. Left on a free transfer.

Figo (£37 million, Barcelona to Real Madrid): the first galáctico, played five seasons helping Real to two league titles and one Champions League victory. Left on a free transfer.

Crespo (£35.5 million, Parma to Lazio): prolific in his two seasons (39 goals in 54 appearances), but Lazio won no trophies while he was there. Sold for £18 million.

Zidane (£46 million, Juventus to Real Madrid): the most expensive player in history provided plenty of entertainment, but in five seasons Real won just one league title and one Champions League. Left to retire.

Buffon (£32 million, Parma to Juventus): won two Serie A titles (plus another two that were revoked) in six seasons. Still at the club.

Ferdinand (£30 million, Leeds United to Manchester United): won two Premier League titles and a League Cup in five seasons. Banned for eight months for missing a drug test. Still at the club.

Ronaldo (£30 million Inter to Real Madrid): a 20-plus goalscorer in his first three seasons, later lost form. Real won one league title during his 4½ years. Sold for £4 million.

Leaving out Buffon and Ferdinand, who are still at their clubs, the other five, who cost a combined £183.5 million, left for a combined total of £22 million, proving that, at this level, there is no resale market. Their track record also shows that such players by no means guarantee silverware (Zidane and Figo are the only ones to have won a Champions League crown after their big-money moves).

Ultimately, clubs are measured by the trophies they win. If that is the goal, they seem to have convinced themselves that they might be better served by buying three players in the £10 million range rather than a single £30 million would-be superstar.

Extra time... Prolongation... Prórroga... Verlängerung... Tempo supplementare...

SCHUSTER FACES BATTLE

Scepticism surrounds Bernd Schuster, who was chosen to replace Fabio Capello at the helm of Real Madrid. In the club’s first outing, against Hannover 96, they were pummelled 3-0. A 5-2 win over Lokomotiv Moscow in their next friendly match was followed by a 2-1 defeat by PSV Eindhoven yesterday and the supporters are less than impressed with the signings so far. But Schuster is hoping to lure Kaká, the AC Milan midfield player, to the Bernabéu and on Thursday, at least for a few minutes, he had the elusive Brazil playmaker in his grasp. Arriving at Moscow airport for a friendly tournament featuring Milan and Real, Kaká wandered on to the Madrid team bus before realising his mistake. Was it an accident? A Freudian lapse? A sign from God? Schuster can only hope . . .

RIQUELME STANCE A REAL RISK

Juan Román Riquelme is providing a clinic on how to get one’s way, contracts be damned. The Argentina playmaker is under contract with Villarreal until June 2008, but he has made it clear that he has no interest in playing for them again.

Last season, he was on loan at Boca Juniors and led them to the Copa Libertadores title in May, following it up with some sterling performances for Argentina in the Copa America. With his stock again on the rise, Villarreal are looking to sell, but Riquelme has turned down all buyers.

He wants to stay at Boca, although the Argentine giants cannot afford his transfer fee.

Look for this battle of wills to continue all summer, with the real risk that, unless a deal is reached, Riquelme - who is one of the most exciting players in the world - may not be playing at all come September.

MUCH ADU ABOUT NOTHING

The once much-hyped Freddy Adu has landed in Europe, joining Benfica for about £1 million. Four years ago, at 14, he became the youngest professional footballer ever when he signed for DC United, of Major League Soccer. Advertisements alongside Pelé and a mega-sponsorship from Nike followed, but he has not lived up to the hype.

That said, as Adu reminded us recently, he’s “still just 18”. He’s also coming off some exceptional performances in the under20 World Cup and it may just be that Benfica have done a great bit of business. Either way, it is good to see the hype machine subside (or, rather, shift its focus to one David Beckham) and let Adu go back to being just a very promising footballer, rather than the saviour of American soccer.