Leeds run the risk and raise the exchange rate

Asked in Turin 10 days ago to nominate the member of Peter Taylor's England team of tenderfeet most likely to break the British transfer record it is doubtful whether Rio Ferdinand would have immediately sprung to mind.

Ferdinand is a footballer of considerable potential. He is also one of the few English defenders with genuine pretensions as a libero. But when he mis-cleared the ball straight to Gennaro Gattuso, who promptly whisked it into the net to win the match for Italy, few onlookers would have priced Ferdinand at £18m with a similar sum to follow in wages.

Leeds United disagree. Their manager David O'Leary and chairman Peter Ridsdale see the 22-year-old West Ham player as fundamental to the business of bringing Champions League football to Elland Road on a regular basis.

So, despite the uncertain future of the whole transfer system under the European Commission, Leeds have been prepared to pay £3m more for a sweeper than Newcastle United did for a striker when Alan Shearer arrived at St James' Park from Blackburn four years ago.

It is a heck of a gamble from two points of view. In the first place Leeds' chances of returning to the Champions League next season and continuing to enjoy its lavish pay-outs have already been diminished by their indifferent form in the Premiership as well as Wednesday night's 2-0 home defeat by Real Madrid.

Secondly, if the player does not settle in successfully at Elland Road and the EC abolishes transfers, there is no way Leeds will recoup anything like their £18m outlay under any agreement to compensate clubs for losing players of Ferdinand's age.

On the other hand Leeds have to strengthen their squad if they are to offer a serious challenge to Manchester United and Arsenal at home while continuing to compete in Europe. Buying Ferdinand makes more practical sense than pleading, as O'Leary did this week, for the size of the Premiership to be reduced to accommodate his relatively modest playing resources.

The size of Ferdinand's fee, moreover, is a refreshing reminder of the importance that should be placed on having a defender who can bring the ball out from the back without looking like a man who has just stepped in a cowpat.

More often than not transfer records are broken by strikers. Clubs will pay almost anything for a regular goalscorer. But how often do they get their money's worth?

Shearer may have scored regularly for Newcastle but they have yet to win anything since he joined them and he has never been the same since an ankle injury forced him to miss half the 1997-98 season. Dwight Yorke, for whom Manchester United paid Aston Villa £12.6m, is not the player he was last season, the jury is still out on Emile Heskey, Liverpool's £11m buy from Leicester, and the £15.5m that between them Liverpool and Villa forked out for Stan Collymore was always going to be fools' gold.

So in a way Ferdinand is carrying a banner for the game's packhorses, the players largely confined to joining in the celebrations when a goal is scored rather than being the focal point of everybody's joy. If his move encourages managers and coaches to discover and develop more English footballers who can create attacks from defence, as Ipswich are doing with Titus Bramble, then Leeds will not be the sole beneficiaries.

Yet the price Leeds have paid for Ferdinand is still staggering and will doubtless have increased Tottenham's frustration at not being able to persuade Sol Campbell to sign a new contract. Campbell, playing it perfectly straight, will complete the season at White Hart Lane after which, under the Bosman ruling, he will be free to play for whom he likes; and Spurs will not see a penny.

That is fair enough except that Tottenham have taught Sulzer Jeremiah Campbell all he knows and are entitled to feel a little miffed at the thought of being left empty-handed if he goes to Manchester United or Liverpool next summer. Not that Gérard Houllier's defence appears to improve whenever new talents are added to it; quite the reverse.

Should England ever breed a libero combining Campbell's strengths as a defender with Ferdinand's ability on the ball the country would have its own Franco Baresi or Laurent Blanc, not to mention another Bobby Moore. Roy McFarland was the last England central defender to satisfy the libero's criteria without really being cast in the role.

Gary Pallister, excellent when going forward, has never been an England regular and, like earlier centre-backs with attacking tendencies, Phil Thompson or Dave Watson for example, has shown few inclinations to be a sweeper.

Ferdinand has some way to go before he can be compared with, say, Chelsea's Frank Leboeuf who, despite the occasional error or lapse of temperament, is a role model to which potential English liberos should aspire; or Patrick Vieira, another emotional Frenchman, who is in effect a sweeper in front of Arsenal's back four.

When Leboeuf or Vieira moves forward with the ball, opponents look nervous. When Campbell is coming, they think "hurrah, hurrah". For Leeds and England it is important that Rio now starts rolling.