Clubs forced to accept crumbs for our crown jewels

Former Sligo Rovers player Seamus Coleman is all the rage these days.

And rightly so. Individually, he has had an outstanding season, with many respected commentators suggesting he and Leighton Baines form the finest full-back partnership in the English Premier League. On top of that, his team, Everton, are close to Champions League qualification.

So it is no wonder that he is being talked about as one of the best bargains in Premier League history. London’s The Metro recently wrote about Coleman’s transfer from Sligo to Everton in 2009: “There’s cheap, and then there’s just plain ridiculous. To discover such a diamond in the rough for the price of a one bedroom flat in Croydon is almost unheard of in top-flight football, and the right back must go down as one of the biggest bargains in Premier League history.”