The Banter Thread
- Thread starter CliffyBiro
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IIRC Clichy cost £250k, Senderos £2m and I did hear something about for some unknown reason Barca getting about £500k for Cesc, although not sure why as technically he didn't have a contract due to age. You missed out some Dutch flop, name of Robin? Dan? Percy? something like that who we spunked £2.75m on. Lupoli £200k. Reyes is a weird one, it was I think £10.75m potentially rising to £17m, but the trouble is I don't know that goes in the books, does it have to go in full whack as potential liability, does it get staggered etc?
In fact staggering could explain a lot, I think I'm right in saying FIFA/UEFA brought in some rule about transfers that said you have to let buying clubs spread the transfer fee over the duration of the player contract if they want (possibly capped at x years), so out of that £40m, maybe some comes from deals done in previous years, who knows.
Another issue is when someone says 2003-4 you can never be sure actually where they have set the boundaries, although looking at the summer deals I can't see anything massive that could skew the stats, so I'd agree that £37m still seems abnormally high.
I do think it somewhat foolhardy to claim that fees are way less than wages, because the total cost of player wages depends on how long they remain at the club so that won't always be the case. Whatever Ibrahimovic got paid at Barca will be dwarfed by the £38m + Eto'o fee they paid for him (Wiki suggests the final value of the deal was €69.884m). You can't really make a direct comparison because wages are time-dependent.
For me, you have to look at the two hand in hand, both are important and you can't simply dismiss transfer fees as they are often the equivalent of several years wages.
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Caporegime
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THe reason to dismiss then in general is as I said before.
If you get Messi as a kid for free, or pay £100mil for him a couple years ago..... he'd be on 250k a week either way.
Transfer fee's are utterly and completely dependant on luck, timing, big stupid clubs wanting to be in on the deal, wanting to make a statement to their neighbours, there is ZERO sense in transfer fee's.
As pointed out RVP for sub 3 mil, Cesc for sub 1 mil(it was the same as we have here, a compensation plan for youth players leaving without a contract), if Ronaldo hadn't been for sale and Cesc had an uninjured season he might have gone there for 60mil. Ronaldo could have had two incredibly injury hit seasons, gone for 15mil with a year left on his contract rather than 80mil.
Wages.... even out some what(not completely though) but transfer fee's are, literally incomparable. Ronaldo and Messi, signing fee essentially 80million apart, both on 250k a week roughly(more now for both I think).
The thing is, transfers MIGHT be higher for one player than his total contract, but there isn't a squad out there whose wages won't cost WAY beyond their transfer spending.
City have spent half a billion on transfers, but looking at 190mil in wages already, and likely to increase, across a 4 year contract assuming most players were on a contract that length, that is 500million of players, in the most expensively assembled squad ever....... and wages are going to cost them probably around the 900million mark over 4 years... assume everyone stayed and signed another 4 year deal on higher wages, that is still 500mil of players, and probably at 2.5billion spent in wages.
Arsenal transfer fee's + wages spent since 2001 will be massive, compared to Spurs I'd think we are WAY ahead.
Another factor is, Wenger will eventually go and Arsenal will almost certainly ship out a bunch of players on the cheap and spend pretty heavily for 2-3 years, thereby "gaining" back on Spurs spending in the past decade, while Spurs likely have quite years, infact if you look they only spent big for 2 seasons and are now not spending an awful lot. So they stay pretty stable and Arsenal's goes up for 50-100mil, but each year we're still spending 50mil more in wages.
Fact is that wages dictate the quality of player you SHOULD have and can get. It's why Spurs don't have an Aguero, or Messi, or Ronaldo.
If Arsenal were spending the exact same amount of money on a real squad, Spurs wouldn't have a chance at top four(if Chelsea weren't throwing it all down the toilet on a truly horrific squad for £150mil a year).
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you can see it through the books. you can't define what each individual player cost but you can see total expenditure on players through each year.
Most clubs will have some players that cost very little or on a free. Essentially they are paying wages of players who didn't cost them a transfer fee - Micah Richards at Manchester City, John Terry at Chelsea, Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, Steven Gerrard at Liverpool, Ledley King at Tottenham Hotspur, Lionel Messi at Barcelona etc. There's a big difference between the ratio of wages:fee between a player who started off at the club, and a player purchased in from elsewhere. If you get Messi at a young age for no fee that doesn't mean you would expect to get a player of the same quality on a free transfer from another club. So the 'fact' that wages cost more than transfer spending does not mean that transfer fees don't matter. If wages are so important, then surely you'd not want to ever pay anyone a transfer fee, as that would leave more money available for wages.
If fees are irrelevant then why don't clubs just buy whoever they want for £100m? In some ways the 'fact' that wages cost more than fees for a squad as a whole arguably just illustrates that fees need to be kept in check to maintain that position. Money is Money, if you ***** £50m on player transfers then that makes no difference to the bank compared to £50m on wages.
To use a real-world analogy, it's a bit like saying the amount of money you pay for a car doesn't matter, all that matters is the running costs. When the reality is that both matter.
You're under no obligation to do that though, neither the player nor the club. In fact if you look at Man City most of their big-money buys did not stay longer than 4 years (we could be here all day listing the strikers they've gone through.... Robinho, RSC, Benjani, Bellamy, probably Tevez & Adebayor etc).
IMO, you cannot just look at one side of the argument, for every player that extends his contract there will be another that leaves the club before his contract is up. Everytime a player is sold before their contract is up that reduces the impact of wages versus transfer fee. Wages should be viewed in absolute terms (how much is spent) not how much could be spent. To date Man City by your own stats have spent over £300m more on fees than wages, yes over time I'd expect those numbers to close up as they have done the initial splurge (like Chelsea did) to get up to speed and FFP is coming in, but you talk about Man City spending all this money on wages over the next 4-8 years with no consideration for any further transfer fees that may be paid, if Man City don't buy any players in the next 8 years I will eat my snood.
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Caporegime
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Miss the old Nike ads. Makes me feel old realising how many of those players have retired now 
Caporegime
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Yeah a lot of them had talent but didn't apply it well on the pitch.
Miss the old Nike ads. Makes me feel old realising how many of those players have retired now
'It's just a ball?'
'NO! It's rounder'
Genius.
Caporegime
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So seems Mourinho has said he's coming back to the EPL next season...where do we think? Fergie shock retirement? City finally appoint the ultimate piggybank manager? Chelsea grovel? Arsenal give up on Wenger? Redknapp in jail?
Maureen needs two things - Money and something to satisfy his Ego.
Spurs are a non starter straight away.
Same with Arsenal
City? maybe, probably most likely
United? Would really satisfy his Ego if he could go there and out-do Fergie, so possibility but I'm not sure bacon face is going to retire just yet.
Chelsea? Money .. check, Ego boost from Roman having to beg him back? . check
Before we get to which jobs he'd take, we've got to look at which might be available. By the sound of it Taggart's not going anywhere this summer, if City win the league then Mancini's safe and I couldn't see Arsenal appointing him regardless of Wenger leaving or not. There's always a chance AVB could be sacked and with the England job becoming available, Redknapp could easily be off too.
So if Mourinho does walk after winning the league (which certainly wouldn't be a surprise), at best he'd have 2 jobs to choose from and as others have said, I can't see him going to Spurs with their current transfer/wage structure.
It wouldn't surprise me if he went for the England job though.
So if Mourinho does walk after winning the league (which certainly wouldn't be a surprise), at best he'd have 2 jobs to choose from and as others have said, I can't see him going to Spurs with their current transfer/wage structure.
It wouldn't surprise me if he went for the England job though.
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