There isn't an ever-replenishing money pool, with anything we don't spend at the end of every transfer window going into the owner's pockets.
I was speaking loosely but it isn't far from the truth. Dividends are a portion of a company’s profit that it chooses to return to its shareholders, spend less, more profit, more payout. Again, this is loosely speaking.
If we overspend on Antony by 50m, our future spending in this and subsequent transfer windows is then restricted by an extra 50m. That's why people care about how much we spend, it comes with opportunity cost.
Not necessarily. The majority of transfers are calculated in periods of five years rolling.
Let’s assume we buy a player for a transfer fee of £20 million (including agents fees etc).
The player signs a 5-year contract for £75,000 a week.
What does that do to our profit and loss account?
The £20 million purchase fee is spread over the length of the contract, so over a 5-year period (assuming the player stays), we add £4 million to the amortisation costs on the profit and loss account each year.
The player is on £75,000 a week. Ignoring any bonuses which would also be added to the cost, the wage bill increases by £3.9 million a year (£75k x 52).
Therefore the annual cost of buying this player is £7.9 million a year – our profit reduces, or our losses increase by this amount each year for 5 years.
This said, the budgets change yearly as wages increase/decrease and players come and go. A 100m fee with 200k a week wages would translate to around 31m a year. How much a year have we just saved on the players leaving? Can we say 700'00 a week? This translates to around 36.5 million a year. Again, this is loosely explained but Antony bought at around these figures would not use any 'transfer budget' so to speak.
It may well be be that that money is still better spent on Antony, even with that in mind. And if we're going to overspend I certainly prefer we do it on our manager's first choice targets.
He is EtH first choice target, for that role at least.
But the "why do people care what we spend?" argument has always been very silly.
Not really. Obsessing about 'we've spent to much' in one sentence then 'why can't the owner just spend what we need' in another is just silly.
Anyway, it's personal opinion and I respect yours.
EDIT: I don't think he is worth 100m (I'm no football finance expert, just a humble lawyer), I do think he is a good player and one that I would like to see in a United shirt.