Rising prices in football

With some of the transfer rumors and how the last few windows have been. Could the ridiculous prices that some players are going for these days even the playing field for most clubs?

In the past the talent seemed much more distributed. Then clubs got a lot richer and money made a distant elite (Madrid, Bayern, Barca, Milan, United, Juve, etc.). Then the oil clubs came and from there, prices have been inflating more and more to the point where a 100 million player is no longer unthinkable. Cristiano, Bale and Neymar have gone for sums around that. Now prices for top talent are so far from what most clubs can pay that only very few can shell out for a world class star (Madrid, PSG, Barca, Bayern, City, United). Everyone else pays for good deals, young talent, or has-beens.

The fact that prices are so prohibiting for most "big" clubs (barring the ones mentioned) could mean that clubs in the middle ground can get back to thick of things. A lot of clubs that rarely get a shot at these stars now have players valued at >40-50mill cause they caught them early.

Roma has a few that would fetch big money (Pjanic, Naingollan, Florenzi). Napoli has one of the most expensive strikers in the market (Higuain). Juve have Pogba, Morata, Dybala, Sandro and Rugani that would eventually cost a ton. Inter and Milan are working on their thing as well. Even Bologna has prospects that will soon be too expensive for most Italian teams (Diawara and Donsah).

In other leagues Laporte is rumored to go for crazy money. As did Mangala and Otamendi. Leicester have Mahrez. West Ham' Payet. Everton' Stones and Lukaku. German and French teams have a bunch of rising stars well distributed around. It seems that teams can now refuse anyone but the super rich unless players demand to leave.

Since most top table teams can no longer buy mid table stars, could we see midtable teams rise and keep their players (or get obscene money for them and reinvest)? The EPL already looks it.