BBC NEWS: Norwich City turned £150k into £25m with stunning early transfer: View.
When Norwich City sold Ben Godfrey for £150,000 to Everton, they made a huge profit.
The Canaries took a chance on signing the defender when he turned 18 after breaking through with York City.
The club stated the transfer was worth £150,000. He was a crucial member of Daniel Farke’s team that won promotion to the Premier League in 2019.
The 26-year-old impressed during the team’s return to the top level, despite being relegated straight back to the Championship.
According to the BBC, Everton spent £25 million to recruit him in October 2020.
This was a huge profit and a fantastic piece of business for the club, since they went on to win promotion back to the Premier League that season.
| Ben Godfrey – Norwich City league goals and appearances (per Fbref.com) | ||||
| Season | Appearances (Starts) | Goals (Assists) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 2 (0) | 0 | ||
| 2018-19 | 31 (26) | 4 (2) | ||
| 2019-20 | 30 | 0 | ||
| 2020-21 | 3 | 0 | ||
Ben Godfrey’s emergence at Norwich
A loan transfer to Shrewsbury Town for the 2017/18 season provided him with valuable senior experience, preparing him to join Farke’s team.
The team nurtured his growth superbly and were rewarded with a promotion caliber season, which led to a nice profit when he was transferred to Everton.
During this time, the Canaries shown that they were astute transfer market operators, assembling a team capable of winning the Championship despite having a smaller budget than some of their competitors.
Norwich City struggled to stay in the Premier League, but their strategic business decisions helped them grow financially.
This was one of the club’s best transfer deals in the recent decade, transforming a whopping £150,000 into £25 million in only a few years.
Lessons for Ben Knapper.
Ben Knapper became director of football at Norwich in the last year, and Johannes Hoff Thorup was appointed as his first manager.
His first summer in charge of the Championship side’s recruiting was frantic, with a higher emphasis on departures owing to rumors surrounding Adam Idah, Jonathan Rowe, and Gabriel Sara.
However, as he gains more experience in the job, he will have more opportunity to comb the market for promising new talent, such as Godfrey.
Norwich’s success with the defense serves as a model for Knapper to emulate, taking risks on younger players who will not cost too much rather than pursuing big-money transfers.
If the Canaries recruit five or six players at a comparable cost, for example, just one of them needs to reach Godfrey’s level to enhance the team and perhaps generate a large profit, and if none of them do, the experiment will have cost roughly £1 million.
It’s a unique approach to the market, and it has the potential to provide them an advantage over their competitors for long-term promotion.
The next Godfrey is out there somewhere, and Norwich should work hard to locate him.
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