Understood, but in the era of player power and the Bosman, that compensation seems unsustainably high. Mbappe can sign a precontract in 6 months, setting his price to zero. A year ago, it would not be unreasonable to say his contract was worth 200M to a purchasing club. He would be worth more now.
The fundamental question is why should players that are worth these sort of numbers not be capturing 80-90% of the value? PSG demands 100M from Real, Mbappe says he expects to be paid 1.5M per week, Real balks and says sounds great for 2024-25 and offers him that in January.
Because the clubs are a business and pay the wages. So in effect, there would be no transfer fees between clubs and just wages paid. That would have a big effect on lower league clubs no?
The financial benefit of this for the player has to be balanced against the challenges of timing. If we take Mbappe as the example, there are still only a small handful of clubs who can pay what heād be expecting. Even the richest of those clubs have to make plans over a multi-year period to accommodate that sort of salary. Often clubs who can pay that fee need the player sooner than he can manipulate his exit and end up being forced to turn to a different option that closes that door for the player. It may well work out for Mbappe, but I think there is a whole host of challenges to this becoming the norm where it breaks the system. Because ultimately if PSG get jobbed out of a 100m+ transfer fee, fuck them.
I think where I cannot quote game plan out the implications are players lower down the pecking order who have salaries loads of clubs can afford. Where I see it probably has the biggest impact is on clubs like us. Clubs who pay more than other clubs in our divisionā¦the sort of clubs who players like Ox and Naby end up having to drop down to after being squeezed out with us. Not only does that create the inventive to see out their contract, so they can realise the bulk of the value of their next contract for themselves, but the risk are minimized. These players tend to only be in this position because they are not playing much, so the chances of suffering a big injury that would affect their next contract become very low in a way that doesnt apply for players trying to move up the ladder with this tactic.
I think the key will not be a Mbappe walking away on a free, but the threat of that forcing the transfer price down enough to accommodate Haaland-type numbers. In that sense, Mbappe-PSG may not be the ideal case, because PSG can live with seeing him walk away for free, in a way that most clubs simply cannot. But I just donāt see how the approximate 66/33 club/player split is viable given the market rules. The equilibrium to me would look a lot more like baseball free agency, where small market teams routinely simply just get plundered.
It is actually quite odd that footy clubs with weaker market rules are able to extract value, where baseball clubs in a sport where a contract hold-out is an extreme event simply do not. John Henry has expressed mystification at the phenomenon of footballers simply deciding they wish to leave despite their contract, and that more or less happens.
In that market, players entering their free agency year routinely purchase insurance to cover injury.
Saw a rumour that the reason his transfer fee was so low, and apparently not beaten by another bidding club is that his father and his agent received about Ā£20 million each in underhand grubby payments.
Yeah, there is that. But it was a central part of him picking them as his next step after Salzberg. They didnāt get market value for him, but if they didnāt accept those release clauses then he wouldnāt have signed for them in the first place. At every step of his career prior to the city move he has made decisions that left money on the table for him and that was so he could have more control over the moves he wanted to make.
"City are the flagship club in the City Football Group, which now incorporates a network of 13 clubs from around the world. āThe club as a whole is well run, is very well run,ā Al Mubarak added. āToday, the value of this group is over six billion dollars. Weāve created so much value ā weāve brought in world class investors.ā
*āWhy? Because we have a commercial machine here that is one of the best in the world. āOur executives are being targeted by the best teams in the world ā always. By the way ā itās a credit to us. I respect that.ā *
āPeople appreciate that we are producing ā not just the best talent on the pitch, not just the best talent in the academy, not just the best talent in the group, but weāre producing some of the best executives in the world, some of the best scouts in the world, some of the best sporting staff in the world.ā
āAnd thatās a testament to the great work that this group is doing. Weāre the number one football brand in the world. These are the facts; these are the facts.ā
I can believe it. I remember we looked him and pulled out. It was pretty clear from day 1 that the transfer fee was never the issue with the deal. It was everything that came with it.
