Why CIES Values Lamine Yamal As More Than Mbappe And Vinicius Combined

Forbes

2 days ago

Lamine Yamal is not yet 18, but his impact on the game is already getting fans to talk about him in the same breath as legends like Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.
Yamal has played just over 5,000 minutes in LaLiga for Barcelona, and has only played 19 games for Spain. But the International Centre for Sports Studies' (CIES) Football Observatory has rated him as the most valuable soccer player in the world.
Not only that, but CIES has given him a value of $458 million. That's more than it values Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior combined.
The next most valuable player according to CIES is Manchester City's Erling Haaland at $272 million, with Real Madrid's Jude Bellingham at $266 million making up the top three.
But why has CIES valued Lamine Yamal so highly?
Firstly, Yamal is a very good soccer player. He's already won LaLiga with Barcelona and the European Championship with Spain where he scored the goal of the tournament. He has been in the LaLiga and Champions League teams of the season and will be one of the contenders for the 2025 Ballon d'Or.
But most of the top players on the list. Including Vinicius Junior and Bellingham, who were both unlucky to miss out on the 2024 Ballon d'Or, have similar recent honors and accolades.
The other reasons that caused CIES to push Yamal's value to such a high figure are his young age, his nationality and the team he plays for, and crucially, that he just signed a new contract last month.
His value on CIES' list for January 2025 was less than half what it has become after that new contract, which is worth around $21 million per year and runs until 2031. Only five players on the list have longer contracts than Yamal. Those players are Erling Haaland, with his mega-contract that runs until 2034, and four players (including Estevao Willian) who are contracted to Chelsea.
Does that mean Yamal is as good as Mbappe and Vinicius Junior combined? No, it just means that because of his contract, it would cost far more to prize him away from Barcelona.
Another interesting feature on CIES' June 2025 valuations is the rise of Paris Saint-Germain, whose Champions League triumph has increased its reputation and subsequently, its players' values.
When Mbappe was at PSG, CIES had once rated him as the world's most valuable soccer player. But on the January 2025 list, PSG only had four players in the top one hundred.
Now, the Parisian club has eleven players on the list. That's the joint-most of any team, along with Real Madrid. CIES rates Joao Neves and Desire Doue as PSG's most valuable players, but it also shows that PSG's value is spread more widely than before, rather than concentrated in a few top players like Mbappe. Paris Saint-Germain's squad is generally considered more balanced than in the recent past, and that is one of the reasons credited for its Champions League win.
Barcelona and Manchester City each have seven players on the list, but perhaps the biggest surprise is that Brighton and Hove Albion has four players and Bournemouth has three players on the list, which is as many players as Bayern Munich.