How can anyone really be worth a £196m pay day?

Call me an out-of-touch member of the judiciary, but I had never heard of Neymar before someone valued him at £196million, which, disgracefully, is even more than the highest-paid man at the BBC.

When I caught the tail end of a radio report I assumed he was a rapper rather than a Brazilian forward (as opposed to a forward Brazilian – although, having seen the party photos of him tattooed and shirtless, he could well be both).

South American Neymar was playing for Barcelona but is joining the French side Paris Saint-germain, which is now Qatari-owned.

It’s like a high-net-worth game of Mornington Crescent and quite the most revealing snapshot of internationalism in sport since John Humphrys popped on his Border Agency uniform and grilled tennis player Johanna Konta over her nationality live on air.

Bizarrely, Neymar isn’t considered to be the best player at Barcelona. So how on earth is a £196 million transfer fee justified? I know football is more important than life or death, but this degree of Tulip Mania hyperinflation is nonsensical;

when he starts with his new team the 25-year-old will pocket £596,000. A week.

Perhaps he transfers most of it by standing order to the benighted favelas of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, where he is phenomenally popular. Perhaps he engages in charity work, coaches street kids in his spare time or his keepie-uppie skills pay for the upkeep of a donkey sanctuary. Perhaps, but if so he’s a bit shtum about it.

It’s crazy salaries that have pushed ticket prices skywards, to the point where loyal fans in most countries can barely afford to go. Wayne Rooney took a 50 per cent wage cut to leave Manchester United and rejoin Everton; but that still leaves with £150,000 a week and a £10million golden goodbye in his back pocket.

What does it say about us a society that we prize footballers above firemen, pay defenders more than doctors and value strikers over schoolteachers? I don’t know, but I expect it’s probably unrepeatable.