The wages and transfer values of professional footballers are the subject of much controversy today.

Besides the ever escalating and increasingly obscene wages and mind bending transfer fees often reported for the best players, this has the effect of inflating the sums of money for all players across the board, to such an extent that football clubs turnover and expenses bear no relation to the economic conditions of the country or even the broader international economy they operate in, and would be a matter of grave concern in any other industry should they witness such exponential unregulated and uncontrolled inflation in their field of interest.

Already in England there is a situation were a couple of the larger clubs have jeopardised their very existence trying to compete on terms with others who are bank rolled by wealthy businessmen.
And they themselves are competing most notably with only a couple of clubs in Spain and perhaps Italy who think nothing of spending such sums of money on single players equal to a third of the value of the stadium in which they play... or could buy the entire club and squad of many other clubs around the world. Meaning that many national leagues that supply these players do not retain their best players, and the league quality suffers as they move to leagues and clubs that have the greatest wealth.

And while in such cases the players concerned may even be significantly more talented than others, and offer the potential of a correspondingly equally elevated chance of success on the pitch, the question we should ask is this: is player X Seventy million pounds (dollars/Euros Etc.) better than Player Y?
No. I would suggest that to be this much better is physically impossible, not to mention insulting to player Y, and placing absurd pressure on player X to justify such sums.

So how can an accurate measure be taken of the player's abilities, consequent transfer value, and wages, relative to each other?

I think to address this, FIFA should publish an annual, global player price index, or valuation formula.

This would be based on industry pay rates of different relative occupations in the nations around the world, an average calculated, in order to establish a base rate, or basic footballer wage and transfer value. From this, other factors are considered, such as the age of the player... adding to this base wage as the player grows older and nears his peak years, before declining again as they pass this period of their career. And then add to the wage by awarding the achievement of trophies and other measures of success... so the player can improve their wage by winning trophies, even if their wage declines as they pass their peak years, offering an incentive to perform well throughout their career.

This would be achieved by awarding a points value along the age scale, which begins to be deducted beyond their peak, and for success, to create the composite points score table for evaluating a player's wage... say if a national league title success is worth 8 points, and a Champions League is worth 9, and the World Cup 10 points.
From this, the transfer value is calculated as a direct correlation to the wage they command.
International adjustments can be made for exchange rates, inflation etc.

Additionally, the league success of the club is taken into consideration, and a handicap system is instituted, whereby a bigger more successful club would have to pay more than a less successful club for the same player.

The effect of producing such an official document which offers a standard assessment will not be felt by attempting to impose an 'allowance' on clubs, as they, being private businesses will of course spend as they see fit, and will reject any move to do so, but as incidences of clubs over reaching themselves financially, or exploiting their power relative to other clubs to get their best players, this will offer something other than their own individual assessments of a player's value, and when a club offers a sum for a player, the club which own the contract of the player in question will be able to judge the fairness and quality of the bid, and determine if it is being exploitative.
But also the club's shareholders can see if their board of directors or those running the club are operating within their means, and therefore, how well they are running the club... and if not, they will be less inclined to invest, and then the club not be able to pay the money.

This will be more highly esteemed and regarded as a serious and pertinent document as incidences, which will inevitably occur, of clubs falling into difficulty, and administration, whereby the the assessment of the clubs expenses are gauged against this index, and the appropriate action taken (expulsion from league, deduction of points, relegation etc.)
The degree of which will be determined by just how extravagant they have been in this respect. With one or two of these examples, other clubs will be keen to avoid this situation, and more closely adhere to the index evaluation.

One final measure of a club's financially responsible behaviour would be squad value.

Often we read about a player going to a club on excessively high wages which causes resentment and discord among the other players there, who feel then that they should have a higher wage comparable to the new arrival. So to stop this happening, and to ensure that any new player is paid in accordance to the club's financial abilities, no one single player should be paid more than a set percentage more than the next highest paid player.
So if you have the highest paid player earning 100 thousand a week, and you want to bring in a player on 200 thousand a week, you have to raise the pay of the hitherto highest paid player to within the new player's wage... in this case lets say that is 30%... then the new player on 200 thousand would mean the next highest paid player would have to have an increase in wage to at least 160 thousand a week.
This would then mean the club has to raise all the player's wages to bring them in line with the new player's highest wage, and although 200 thousand a week would seem a lot of money, they would have to pay many times more than that to bring that player in on that wage through payments to the rest of the squad... so they will then be more likely to offer a more sensible wage that is more closely related to the financial structure of the club and within it's means.

FIFA offers a standard to measure against, and gradually it will influence the clubs