What exactly goes on when we bid for a player? Why does it take so long? It should take a couple of days max.
We have been preparing a bid for Longstaff for nearly a week now. Snails move faster.
Budgeting in organizations like Manchester United is a bigger undertaking than you imagine.
First: The club are looking at more than 1 player. It's not a simple question of "just bid £10 million more". £10 million is an absolutely insane amount of money. You might think its worthless, but to you and me, £10 million is fairytale money, but in regards to transfers its something we read about in the newspaper and don't have any relationship to, so its difficult to even imagine how much money this is.
The biggest distribution contract I've signed in my company was worth £4 million over 2 years, and we spent nearly 3 weeks arguing about variables that were worth a few thousand. My point is that nothing is straightforward.
Football contracts have clauses in them, and often the clauses are the sticking point. Clauses are offered, re-negotiated, improved on, rejected, rewritten and presesented in a new package. You have to go back, and forth, thinking needs to be made, people need to sign off. It's not a tit for tat process. Ed Woodward is not always part of a negotiation and he's in the loop, has to sign off on certain elements, you go back to the table, involve other people, and so you go. And that's just for the clauses.
When you offer say £10 mill for a player. The other club wants £15. What's the big deall, its just £5 million?
Firstly: The selling club nearly always has a overvalutation of their player. They want as much as they can get for a player. Simple enough.
The bidding club has an analyzis in place that evaluates all the players metrics and characteristics that place a max value on a player. And on top of that comes the "gut" feeling that has some leeway, but these numbers don't pop out of a hat. They are figures based on real data. Comparable transfers, a players age, potential (risk factor), inflation, all play a part in how much a player is both worth, and judged to be worth.
So if the bidding club don't want to go over their max value, and the selling club don't want to go down on their overvaluation, what then? Well you try to meet in the middle, throw offers back and forth, both parties have to swallow some pills, you include and remove clauses, and then finally start negotiating clauses that go into the selling contract, performance based, cap based, etc etc, there's too many variables to list. And on top of that the negotiating parties need time to think about the offer, maybe listen to other offers, and so on.
Also something that factors in is a clubs budget. A club like Manchester United has an enormous spending bill, and income report annually. Moving a number around in the clubs budget is not a small task. You can't just go "I'll just take £10 million from here". The club is bidding on other players as well, we have a transfer budget that might rely on players being sold on top of the money already allocated. Future income is judged into the budget for this year. Is a player x likely to bring us to CL and incrase our revenue? Well he's worth x% above our valuation
with a risk%. Is that risk% acceptable? No? We walk way Yes? We try to meet in the middle.
Clubs are also in a position of bargaining power compared to us. Harry Maguire is not forcing a move from his club, and Leicester don't have to sell. Reports are that they want £85 million while Man united have made an official bid of £70 million pr. Simon Stone of BBC (Simon is 99.9% reliable). The valuation on the player is a new world record for a centreback. Our offer is already huge. They want more.
And so the clubs are currently going back and forth discussing potential deals. Money upfront, money over time, money based on performance, etc etc etc.
This takes a long long time. Unless a club simply pays the release clause, or by some miracle agree on the first bid, then the process of purchasing a player is a long one. It does take weeks and it's not at all a surprise.
So yeah, that's why it takes more than 2 days to prepare a bid, and more than 4 days to complete a transfer.
.No way he's coming here.