The van Purse Strings

If you have 14 million pounds in real life, you are an Ultra High Net Worth Individual (Ultra HNWI). There are an estimated 100,000 Ultra HNWIs on the planet. That sounds like a lot of people, and if they all came to your Bar Mitzvah at once, it would be. But there are 282 times that number of people just playing Fantasy Premier League this year. 100,000 is actually a small number in the big scheme of things. 14 million, on the other hand, is a very large number indeed.

Another large number is 1.34 million. This is an approximate rounding up from the 47.6% of total FF population who have Robin van Persie in their squads.

At the time of writing, RVP is priced at £14.0m, and by the time you read this, almost certainly will have increased in price to £14.1m. But we've already seen that 100,000 is a small number, so lets just say RVP costs £14m. Shhh shh shh, £14m, just go with it.

Now £14m is a heck of a lot of your FF budget, and its probably ridiculous to spend it all in one place. But its scary when almost HALF THE LEAGUE has RVP. Sooo many people. You said 1.34 million is a big number! How can all these people be wrong?

The reality is people are stupid.

There is a lot of FF shopping you can do with £14m. Shopping that will return more points than if you just drop it down the InSinkerator and push the button labelled "van Persie".

But don't take my word for it. My cat has an FF team that's doing better than me. I'm stupid. You didn't know? I wrote it two paragraphs ago. What are you, people?

No, we need a robust methodology, from people who know what they are doing. So I asked the world's Top 50 FF managers if they have RVP in their squads. (I say "asked", but what I really mean is that I cyberstalked their teams on the Internet... and, uh, places). How many of the GLOBAL TOP 50 have spent £14m on the t-shirt labelled "van Persie"?

Three.

That's 6%, which is nothing like RVP's 47% total ownership percentage. Does this mean that the people who own him are actually the bottom 50%? My cat says statistically speaking, probably not. I'm not certain yet, I haven't checked that far.

In fairness, RVP's next fixture at home against Crystal Palace is very favourable. And there is no doubt he is capable of points. Despite this, 14.0 million pounds is so much money that it may as well be imaginary. And even when it is imaginary money, 14 million pounds is still a lot of money. People are stupid, but the Top 50 people in the world are not. And they say No to RVP. Maybe you should too.





** Note: If you have 14 million pounds in real-life and need bespoke fantasy football advice or global wealth portfolio management consultancy, I am the agent of a very financially astute cat. Request our services in the comments below.

** Disclaimer: I don't actually have a cat.