Perspective about transfer fees.

tomaldinho1 said:
Interesting OP

I wonder if there's a way to calculate average spend on transfers per major trophy - if only to show Wenger up :)
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Total nett spend per trophy (not counting Community Shield)

Spurs: 170m on 2 trophies = 85m per trophy
Arsenal: 179m on 13 trophies = 13.7m per trophy
Liverpool: 381m on 10 trophies = 38.1m per trophy
United: 487m on 25 trophies = 19.5m per trophy
Chelsea: 711m on 19 trophies = 37.4m per trophy
City: 800m on 5 trophies = 160m per trophy

These are based from figures in August last year, so not entirely up to date.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
If anything, this highlights how ridiculous the quoted fee for Perisic is.

Paying the same for a late twenties journeyman who's never shown anything at the highest level as we did for Anderson, a world class talent at the time, and Berbatov, a Premier League star?

Close to what we paid for players like Park and Valencia (admittedly steals in hindsight) is where the Perisic price should be be.
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Feck hindsight, you've clearly also got future-sight.
 
What if we had made £2bn last season and all the other clubs had remained the same? Would £200m for Persic be considered a good deal then?
 
This is a good post I'd love to see a league wide one to compare thing. I'd imagine for us at City the fee for Aguero would be our biggest in relation to turnover and well over 20%.
 
padr81 said:
This is a good post I'd love to see a league wide one to compare thing. I'd imagine for us at City the fee for Aguero would be our biggest in relation to turnover and well over 20%.
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City have had some huge ones:


Tevez cost 52% of turnover in 2009
Robinho cost 41% of turnover in 2008
Augers cost 27% in 2011
 
This is a very good OP but this point has been made many times before and it never quite sinks in. People cannot get their heads around the concept of paying £48m for Perisic or £60m for Dier (not that I actually think they'll go for those sums) because they fail to see beyond those numbers in absolute terms. You can make the point the OP makes til you're blue in the face, but all some people will want to think was that the selling club has made a mug of us, or something along those lines, or comparing the fee to Cantona costing £1m, or Alli costing £5m as relatively recent bargains.

I'm fairly certain that selling clubs look at metrics like these to come to a price they'll demand or aim for. Just as I have every confidence that the money men at United know what they can afford and don't give a monkeys about price if they know that they have £xm in extra sponsorships coming into the kitty in the next financial year.
 
£510m turnover?? Bloody hell Del!

I remember David Gill saying United use 50% of their turnover as a transfer budget to the manager. By that now, Mourinho would have £255m to spend before sales!
 
LawCharltonBest said:
£510m turnover?? Bloody hell Del!

I remember David Gill saying United use 50% of their turnover as a transfer budget to the manager. By that now, Mourinho would have £255m to spend before sales!
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I think this might be wrong. I remember us keeping the wage bill to within 50% of turnover.
 
Great topic, some of those figures are extremely revealing. Our club's turnover really has exploded over the last few years.
 
While this is a good post which everyone should see. I will argue that Anderson represented far better value than Perisic since he was considered one of the best young players in the world when we signed him. It only seems expensive in hindsight.
 
The OP will have a hard time to stay rich, if you start buying stuff based on your percentage income, instead of the market price.
 
The money is irrelevant. If you had a classic sports car and you had got 3 good tyres and 1 bald one and was going on a 100 mile road trip, and although you could take a chance with what you had got, or purchase the right tyre from the only garage in town, that wanted £50 for a tyre you thought was only worth £30, would you buy it? Of coure you would.

We need to be thankful our manager is backed by the board, to try and get in the players that he thinks will benefit us. It doesnt matter a jot the players price up to a point, as the selling club will hold out for maximum revenue, as they have to get a replacement in as well, and know that for Premier teams, and the top 5-6 in particular, money is not an issue.

If you turn it around and Madrid offered £35 million for De Gea and we valued at £60 million, should we say 'oh lets sell for roughly what Madrid want to pay. Lets just hold out for £40 million as its Madrid were selling to'. To Mou, Perisic is worth £48 million, end of story.
 
Isotope said:
The OP will have a hard time to stay rich, if you start buying stuff based on your percentage income, instead of the market price.
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But the market is clearly inflating. If a house goes on the market for 500K you're not going to get far saying you will only pay 300K because that's how much houses cost 2 years ago.
 
GBBQ said:
But the market is clearly inflating. If a house goes on the market for 500K you're not going to get far saying you will only pay 300K because that's how much houses cost 2 years ago.
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That's a question which would probably deserve its own thread, because it's not like United pay what everyone else pays, I don't think you'd see Bayern, Barca or Real pay €100+m for Pogba or €90m for Lukaku.

Transfermarkt keep aggregated spending stats you can play around:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/einnahmenausgaben
 
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do.ob said:
That's a question which would probably deserve its own thread, because it's not like United pay what everyone else pays, I don't think you'd see Bayern, Barca or Real pay €100+m for Pogba or €90m for Lukaku.
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They might not pay it but Everton are no longer financially motivated to sell a player hence a huge bid is required. Look at Siggurdson for 50 mil, its not just united
 
GBBQ said:
They might not pay it but Everton are no longer financially motivated to sell a player hence a huge bid is required. Look at Siggurdson for 50 mil, its not just united
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That's why those clubs would probably step away from Lukaku and look elsewhere, instead of saying "I want that one player and I'm going to pay whatever they ask".
 
PhilMcD79 said:
Off you go then. Over to you. Or are you just a back seat driver?
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Not bothered enough to do it myself. Read comprehensible analysis of this in Russian (some very enthusiastic economist explained it on the basis of United, Madrid and a few other clubs).

A good article on transfer myths
https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/2016/aug/24/transfer-window-market-myths
This is a universal accounting practice called player amortisation, and it is fundamental to how clubs calculate player costs. Rather than recording the entire purchase when it was made, the club will spread the transfer fee over the length of the player’s contract.

Naturally, wages must also be included in the calculation of player costs. Ideally, agent fees and image rights payments will be included as well, but to keep things simple, we’ll focus on the two big expenditures: amortisation and wages.

With Mkhitaryan costing Manchester United £8.75m per year in amortisation and £9.36m in wages (£180,000 per week multiplied by 52 weeks), his overall cost to the club is just over £18.1m per year. That £18.1m per year is what clubs look at with regards to player costs, not just the transfer fees coming in and out.
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So the transfer fee should be compared not only with that year's revenue, but with multiple ones.
 
do.ob said:
That's a question which would probably deserve its own thread, because it's not like United pay what everyone else pays, I don't think you'd see Bayern, Barca or Real pay €100+m for Pogba or €90m for Lukaku.
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No but they havent been in drastic decline and dont need to greatly upskill so its a case of we have to pay the price to get better players in. Once we get back to the top I think we wont be paying these prices and will have more clout
 
AndyJ1985 said:
Anderson was never close to being a world class talent.
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Ha. Of course he was. He never fulfilled that potential and so was never world class but he was certainly a world class talent. How may were better than him at the same age in his last season for Porto and his debut season with us?
 
Jericholyte2 said:
So I've been looking around the various threads and everyone keeps going, "50m for Perisic" or, "60m for Dier" and the tirade of abuse Ed gets for this. Whilst the numbers in general are crazy, we need to look at the turnover of the club. This is really the only stat that matters, as it represents what we can afford to spend on squad, first team, key players etc. I found this list from last year....

image.jpg


So last year we broke the world record for a transfer, which was less than 20% of our turnover.

When we look at the turnover from last year, United made £515m. Looking at this, Lukaku cost 14.6%, on a par with Roy Keane. The potential spend on Perisic would equate to 9.7% (using 50m as an estimate) which puts him on a par with Anderson. Surely for a first team squad player this would be an acceptable fee. I understand the complaints about productivity but from a purely financial point of view this makes complete sense.

Look at our rivals and their turnover:

Arsenal: 350m turnover, Lacazette was 15.5%
Chelsea: 335m turnover
Liverpool: 302m turnover, Salah was about 12%
City: 392m turnover, Kyle Walker was about 12%
Spurs: 210m turnover

I think some perspective needs to be used when viewing these figures. Selling clubs are no mugs, they see our figures and know what we can afford for players.
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It looks good in isolation. Add up all the fees we pay in one year (I know they are paid in installments) I'm sure our transfer fees total to about 35-40% of turnover. Take 1-2 big transfer a window and two addition to the squad and you will easily surpass 200 mil mark. Wages usually take about 50% of turnover too.

What I'm trying to say that even club rich as ours need to be careful with fees paid.
 
You sure the list is correct?
RVN was bought in 2001 for 19m, surely he would feature near the top. Ditto for Mata
 
do.ob said:
That's why those clubs would probably step away from Lukaku and look elsewhere, instead of saying "I want that one player and I'm going to pay whatever they ask".
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But that is exactly Barca and Madrid's approach to new signings. All that has changed is the amount of money it takes to get a player. It was previously 90 mil for Ronaldo but if Real Madrid wanted him today you'd probably expect 200 mil plus and you can be sure they would buy him for that too. Same with Barcelona buying Neymar or Suarez they would happily pay record transfer fees to get them in.
 
GBBQ said:
But that is exactly Barca and Madrid's approach to new signings. All that has changed is the amount of money it takes to get a player. It was previously 90 mil for Ronaldo but if Real Madrid wanted him today you'd probably expect 200 mil plus and you can be sure they would buy him for that too. Same with Barcelona buying Neymar or Suarez they would happily pay record transfer fees to get them in.
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So you think Lukaku is in the same bracket as Neymar, Suarez and Ronaldo?
 
Interesting way of looking at things. Good stuff. It really highlights how bad a transfer Veron was for us though. :lol:
 
I think the problem is more we don't get that much quality for the money. I guess a big part is that all the other PL sides have so much money as well. Still you would think we would have it easier to lure good players from other leagues for decent fees.
 
How about transfer fee against team prize money over a season?

I suspect, in terms of football alone, these transfer fees make no sense.

Clearly the off the field revenues make it worthwhile. Hopefully. Probably.
 
RedCurry said:
A bit pedantic but transfer fee to operating profit would be a lot more relevant. Clubs revenues have increased but so have costs.
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Exactly, whats the saying: "turnover is vanity profit is sanity". In 2001 we didnt have the Glazer debt, so Veron at 21.7% of turover is incomparable to Pogba at 19.6% in 2016.

This doesn't offer any meaningful perspective in itself.
 
do.ob said:
That's a question which would probably deserve its own thread, because it's not like United pay what everyone else pays, I don't think you'd see Bayern, Barca or Real pay €100+m for Pogba or €90m for Lukaku.

Transfermarkt keep aggregated spending stats you can play around:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/statistik/einnahmenausgaben
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Madrid paid 80 Million Euros for James and that was in 2014, they paid 45 Million Euros for a player who played 1 professional game. So yeah, if they wanted a midfielder they would have paid 100 million for Pogba.

Bayern signed Renato Sanches, player who had less than 1 yeat experience at top level for 35 Million plus 45 Million (80 Million)

So yeah, if they weren't set with midfielders they would have paid 100 million, after all they came near the amount for lesser players.
 
Sir alex thought too much about the transfer price and failed to adapt to the changing prices and that cost us. Had he not been stubborn we could have had silva, aguero, hazard,ozil playing for us and even after he left we would have been in a decent situation.

Wenger does the same but he is no sir alex to make arsenal win league in this competitive atmosphere. We have to adapt to the changing prices or we will be left out of the pack and struggle even more. Imagine real madrid refusing to pay for ronaldo 8 years ago. Investments are ro be made and because we didn't make that many under sir alex, we are struggling now and are paying over the odds money for players.
 
wolvored said:
The money is irrelevant. If you had a classic sports car and you had got 3 good tyres and 1 bald one and was going on a 100 mile road trip, and although you could take a chance with what you had got, or purchase the right tyre from the only garage in town, that wanted £50 for a tyre you thought was only worth £30, would you buy it? Of coure you would.
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I agree with this approach. The money only matters to the shareholders of the club. Purely as a fan, what does it matter what the cost of a key component of the club is so long as the club can afford it? We pay retail prices for these assets, does it matter that other clubs pay wholesale; not if we get our men.

My larger concern is that much of the market inflation is based on TV contracts. Unfortunately, this is the end of the golden age of sports rights contracts. The next contract will undoubtedly be less rewarding than the current one, meaning turnover will drop...
 
Jericholyte2 said:
Total nett spend per trophy (not counting Community Shield)

Spurs: 170m on 2 trophies = 85m per trophy
Arsenal: 179m on 13 trophies = 13.7m per trophy
Liverpool: 381m on 10 trophies = 38.1m per trophy
United: 487m on 25 trophies = 19.5m per trophy
Chelsea: 711m on 19 trophies = 37.4m per trophy
City: 800m on 5 trophies = 160m per trophy

These are based from figures in August last year, so not entirely up to date.
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interesting - I guess if you remove FA cups and League cups Arsenal suddenly have 0 trophies for last decade?

City's trophy return is even worse than I thought looking at that
 
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