Should a team like Man Utd “make profit” on players?

[UnitedSofa]

Just a discussion point

But even now I would say that once you leave Man Utd you’re going down a level, and if you’re going down a level you’re selling to teams less than you, who would have less money, right?

Compound that with the “man utd tax” when the player was originally brought in, it would be incredibly hard to sell that player for more than you bought him for.

So you’ll always be making a loss, right? Eight or nine times out of 10 this will always happen, sure you have your exceptions like Ronaldo & Coutinho for Liverpool, but big teams usually aren’t selling clubs, & usually let players go when they’re not as good anymore.

I dunno, just a thought? I think we can probably get more for our players at times, but definitely not for a profit.

 

[LochGormanAbú]

You can scout better and bring in players who will improve and go up in value. Liverpool brought in players like Solanke, Ings, Minamino, squad players but managed to sell them on for a decent profit, obviously Coutinho too and no doubt that McAllister, Gravenberch, Gapko, Elliot would all be sold for a profit if they were leaving.

You're thinking doesn't really make sense, don't overpay in the first place.

 

[OverratedOpinion]

We should ideally recruit and perform well enough that when we do sell players they are either a profit or close enough that overall our net spend is a lot more healthy than it is now.

Problem we got ourselves into was a tailspin of constantly depreciating players and throwing good money after bad. Due to this we would strongly benefit from making some profit for PSR.

 

[DJ_21]

Just a discussion point

But even now I would say that once you leave Man Utd you’re going down a level, and if you’re going down a level you’re selling to teams less than you, who would have less money, right?

Compound that with the “man utd tax” when the player was originally brought in, it would be incredibly hard to sell that player for more than you bought him for.

So you’ll always be making a loss, right? Eight or nine times out of 10 this will always happen, sure you have your exceptions like Ronaldo & Coutinho for Liverpool, but big teams usually aren’t selling clubs, & usually let players go when they’re not as good anymore.

I dunno, just a thought? I think we can probably get more for our players at times, but definitely not for a profit.

Unless you join R Madrid, who use to always buy our players and we made a profit on most of them. It depends what players you sign, like us who over the last few years have either signed older players which then have no value when you want to sell them, or we splash on players like Antony but then when they perform very bad their value comes down a lot but let’s say Antony lived up to his price tag then we wouldn’t want to sell him anyway and it would have been money well spent. The way forward is to sign young talent like we have with Yoro and for a very cheap price, if he becomes the player we all think he will then his next club is bound to be Madrid who’ll splash a lot more on him than we payed.

 

[golden_blunder]

Just a discussion point

But even now I would say that once you leave Man Utd you’re going down a level, and if you’re going down a level you’re selling to teams less than you, who would have less money, right?

Compound that with the “man utd tax” when the player was originally brought in, it would be incredibly hard to sell that player for more than you bought him for.

So you’ll always be making a loss, right? Eight or nine times out of 10 this will always happen, sure you have your exceptions like Ronaldo & Coutinho for Liverpool, but big teams usually aren’t selling clubs, & usually let players go when they’re not as good anymore.

I dunno, just a thought? I think we can probably get more for our players at times, but definitely not for a profit.

Is this a United thread or a general topic? Trying to decide which forum this is intended for

 

[Chipper]

United the mid table football team? Yes we should.

United of the past, an elite club? Not so much a concern but happens anyway. Your rejects can net you big profits too.

 

[UnitedSofa]

Is this a United thread or a general topic? Trying to decide which forum this is intended for

I’m talking purely United here, but I guess it could go into “football” as the discussion could divert to teams other than United

 

[UnitedSofa]

We should ideally recruit and perform well enough that when we do sell players they are either a profit or close enough that overall our net spend is a lot more healthy than it is now.

Problem we got ourselves into was a tailspin of constantly depreciating players and throwing good money after bad. Due to this we would strongly benefit from making some profit for PSR.

Though if you have a good player, you should rarely be selling them on, as an elite big club, we shouldn’t be selling the best players that we develop, we should be in a position that we don’t need to sell.

 

[Stadjer]

I dont think Manchester United should strive to make profit on players. The players that were bought should be making money for the club by winning the prize money from the league, CL and attract sponsors because of the succes. I dont see Real Madrid sell their important players to make a profit for example.

It would be nice if our players maintained their value though. Antony, Sancho, Casemiro, Hojlund and Maguire werent worth their transferfees in the first place (well Sancho might have actually considering his age, his stats and potential at the time) but those players dropped down in value quickly after their performances in a Manchester United shirt.

 

[UnitedSofa]

United the mid table football team? Yes we should.

United of the past, an elite club? Not so much a concern but happens anyway. Your rejects can net you big profits too.

This is a nuance that should be taken into consideration, but are we really a mid table team? Mid table would indicate 10-12th?

I don’t think we’ll finish where we are now at the end of the season

 

[UnitedSofa]

Unless you join R Madrid, who use to always buy our players and we made a profit on most of them. It depends what players you sign, like us who over the last few years have either signed older players which then have no value when you want to sell them, or we splash on players like Antony but then when they perform very bad their value comes down a lot but let’s say Antony lived up to his price tag then we wouldn’t want to sell him anyway and it would have been money well spent. The way forward is to sign young talent like we have with Yoro and for a very cheap price, if he becomes the player we all think he will then his next club is bound to be Madrid who’ll splash a lot more on him than we payed.

True on Madrid but Beckham was an academy player, Ronaldo was a balon d’or winning specimen & van Nistelrooy we made a small loss on

I’d hate to develop Yoro into this amazing player to then sell him on.

 

[Stadjer]

True on Madrid but Beckham was an academy player, Ronaldo was a balon d’or winning specimen & van Nistelrooy we made a small loss on

I’d hate to develop Yoro into this amazing player to then sell him on.

Hopefully Yoro can become our reverse Varane. He will win everything with us and when he is older, more injury prone and less good than he was during his prime then Real Madrid can have him for a big fee! Seems only fair to me after we bought Varane and Casemiro from them.

 

[golden_blunder]

I’m talking purely United here, but I guess it could go into “football” as the discussion could divert to teams other than United

If it’s United you created it in the wrong forum, hence why I asked

 

[Chipper]

This is a nuance that should be taken into consideration, but are we really a mid table team? Mid table would indicate 10-12th?

I don’t think we’ll finish where we are now at the end of the season

I was being a bit hyperbolic there, but I don't think we're quite as much as a destination club as we once were. The club where a player really wants to end up as his ultimate aim. That could manifest itself in two ways.

First that in an open market, players may choose other clubs over us all things else being equal becuase they see others as perhaps having more potential to win trophies. There's always been Madrid, and there was peak Barca I suppose, but I think there's probably a few more now.

The second way which more pertains to the question is that if we do buy a player, could we see more players than just a one off Ronaldo type wanting to move away to what they see as a bigger/better club should we stay in a slump compared to what we once were? It hasn't happened yet, but possibly. I'd say embrace that if you could, buy someone, make them look good and use that cash to sign someone even better if possible. That's the model that a lot of teams have to follow.

Monetarilly it's a bit different, we can still pay top wages although every year out of the CL puts more pressure on that side of things from the financial angle too, not just where top players want to end up. It becomes a little bit more of a need or requirement to balance the books on the transfers at some point. It's a problem that the greater the need the harder it becomes. When you're at the top your youth players, or younger players that you brought in fairly cheaply that show flashes but don't quite make the grade are still very appealling to many teams, not so much when you're struggling a bit more.

 

[duffer]

It depends when you buy them. You paid £400K or something tiny for Garnacho and there's talk of selling him for 100X that figure.

If you buy someone who is 23 or over then you very probably wont make a profit but that's the same for most of the traditionally "big" clubs in England over the past few decades.

 

[tenpoless]

Yes but it won't always be possible. Because big clubs usually sell players when they don't need them anymore. Smaller teams sell players when they're sought after.
However Just because we want to sell doesn't mean we should accept lowball offers. It's about selling at the right time. So if making a profit / getting more money means we won't be keeping players longer than necessary anymore I'm all for it. Also helps with our finances now that PSR is here.

 

[acnumber9]

No. When we were winning titles and Champions Leagues we weren’t making profits on selling players. The only way to consistently make money on transfers is to consistently sell your best players. Why would anybody other than the owners want that?

 

[Bright_Eyes]

I think teams like Real Madrid do it well. If you have a good recruitment team you can sell top players like Ronaldo, Varane and Casemiro for a profit just as they're starting their decline and invest that money into quality younger replacements. Issue is we've been the ones signing those types of players. In that sense being on the other ends of those deals and making a profit on players would be a good thing.

 

[sullydnl]

On some players, absolutely.

Because a significant portion of your squad should always be academy players, young signings you develop or bargains your superior scouting team identifies. If you're not bringing in those players then your recruitment approach is less efficient than ideal.

And on top of that, there's always the chance some club will be dumb enough to spend big money on a player you've had the best years of. For example, us giving Real Madrid a €65m profit for Casemiro.

Even leaving aside all the academy products/signings we sold for profit under SAF, we also made some (if sometimes marginal) profit on players like (I think?) Ronaldo, Stam, RVN, Yorke, Forlan and Ince. And post-SAF I think we sold Dan James, Chris Smalling and Chicharito for more than we paid.

 

[Ali Dia]

I think teams like Real Madrid do it well. If you have a good recruitment team you can sell top players like Ronaldo, Varane and Casemiro for a profit just as they're starting their decline and invest that money into quality younger replacements. Issue is we've been the ones signing those types of players. In that sense being on the other ends of those deals and making a profit on players would be a good thing.

This. Teams that are more sucessful domestically than us recently make decent profits on players. Just because you have a good player it doesn't mean you have to be the one to always develop that player to their max potential. Maybe they don't work hard enough or fit the system or would be better off being the main guy at a club with less pressure etc etc. with the way psr is you need to be churning the talent through the club from the youth teams and more obscure leagues around the world and using the loan system to your advantage. When you have a pull like a club like Utd where it should be the ultimate shop window you have to use it

 

[DJ_21]

True on Madrid but Beckham was an academy player, Ronaldo was a balon d’or winning specimen & van Nistelrooy we made a small loss on

I’d hate to develop Yoro into this amazing player to then sell him on.

I’m still surprised we actually beat Madrid to his signing. So I just feel like he’s destined to join them at some point in his career but if we can do what they did with Varane, have him for his best years and then sell him on for a large profit then we should be happy with that.

 

[Sky1981]

There's depreciation due to age, there's bad purchase you move on, then there's catastrophical total lost like buying Pogba for 80M and losing him for free, or a total wrekage in Sancho, Anthony and Casemiro

You can survive the first 2, imagine trading up your iPhone every 2 - 3 years compared to losing it outright and have to bought a new one full price

A good team can recycle a 500m budget and run with minimal yearly investment, kinda like what we did with SAF. We bought the star player and the rest was filled with good players we can sell or to the very least dont need much to upgrade.

We're literally spending billion the past 10 years and nothing to show for. I dont think ee even have actual market value of 400M total in our currect squad

 

[NZT-One]

Just a discussion point

But even now I would say that once you leave Man Utd you’re going down a level, and if you’re going down a level you’re selling to teams less than you, who would have less money, right?

Compound that with the “man utd tax” when the player was originally brought in, it would be incredibly hard to sell that player for more than you bought him for.

So you’ll always be making a loss, right? Eight or nine times out of 10 this will always happen, sure you have your exceptions like Ronaldo & Coutinho for Liverpool, but big teams usually aren’t selling clubs, & usually let players go when they’re not as good anymore.

I dunno, just a thought? I think we can probably get more for our players at times, but definitely not for a profit.

Two things that come to mind to me reading this.
1) The days where leaving ManUnited was going down a level are over. And the sooner we accept that as status quo, the better. The good thing is, that status quo doesn't have to be that forever. It can change once again. But clinging to something from the past, even worse using methods or "rules" that were applicable "back then" now is a recipe for desaster. There is no success on a football level, our stadium isn't state of the art, our tactics aren't crazy new nor is anything else top notch at this point in time. All we have left is history, a big name and for a long time the idiocy to try to balance all that out with burning money. We have to make decisions based on where we are not based on where we want to be or where we think we "belong".

2) United shouldn't be a club with a business model of making profits by selling players. But at this point in time and considering things like PSR and FFP it might be a temporary solution for the time being. Also, I think, if you run the club well, making benefits on players is happening as a by product. Imagine this scenario: we brought in Malacia for a relatively cheap amount of 15 million. He plays, becomes are regular but doesn't manage to make a claim to be in the starting eleven. At some point, a club comes to us who thinks, that Malacia is good enough to be THEIR starting LB and offers us 25 million. Would this deal be done, we'd have made a profit on it. I think, one of the most important aspects here is that United tend to overpay for players. From such a position, making profit is next to impossible, whatever we do.

I was being a bit hyperbolic there, but I don't think we're quite as much as a destination club as we once were. The club where a player really wants to end up as his ultimate aim. That could manifest itself in two ways.

First that in an open market, players may choose other clubs over us all things else being equal becuase they see others as perhaps having more potential to win trophies. There's always been Madrid, and there was peak Barca I suppose, but I think there's probably a few more now.

The second way which more pertains to the question is that if we do buy a player, could we see more players than just a one off Ronaldo type wanting to move away to what they see as a bigger/better club should we stay in a slump compared to what we once were? It hasn't happened yet, but possibly. I'd say embrace that if you could, buy someone, make them look good and use that cash to sign someone even better if possible. That's the model that a lot of teams have to follow.

Monetarilly it's a bit different, we can still pay top wages although every year out of the CL puts more pressure on that side of things from the financial angle too, not just where top players want to end up. It becomes a little bit more of a need or requirement to balance the books on the transfers at some point. It's a problem that the greater the need the harder it becomes. When you're at the top your youth players, or younger players that you brought in fairly cheaply that show flashes but don't quite make the grade are still very appealling to many teams, not so much when you're struggling a bit more.

Well said!

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

The ideal scenario for top clubs is that they spend X money on a player and then never sell them because the player is incredibly good and never wants to leave.

 

[Krakenzero]

Net profit on transfers should be more of an afterthought than a main priority in United's case.

The main priority should be to make the most value out of a player (and out of the whole squad since we're at it) during the time the player is in the club. And that is more or less measured in trophies, qualifying for the UCL, wins, goals and clean sheets. T-shirts sold, advertising/TV deals and value per share if we get more cynical, but it's all part of the same as they are all expressions of making United's brand bigger/more valuable.

The above doesn't necessarily translate to a positive net transfer since you should generally tend to buy players right before his peak (early 20s) and sell them right after (early 30s in most cases) and on those cases you'll obviously have a net loss due to a smaller resale value. But if the player helped you win a lot and therefore generated a lot of value while in the club then it doesn't really matter. Plus United have a good academy and is constantly looking for value in U20 bargain players around the world so you should be compensating for it anyway.