It's all very well blaming the club for selling players in January....

Why would players untried at championship level have no intention of signing for Barnsley. They may not have done by January but it's quite feasible that 3 out of the 4 would have done if offered a reasonable long term contract post Wembley.


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Problem is every player would have demanded terms in line with championship players wages and with no guarantee that we would have stayed up and then been bogged down with players on wages we couldn't afford in L1. It's easy to say in hindsight we should have done x, y or z.


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I agree it was feasible if Contracts had been offered in the close season. Sadly it appears they weren't.
The missing bit of information we are not party to, is when were new contracts /terms physically offered.?
Was Linton Browns departure in any way connected to that situation.?

I can empathise with the Clubs dilemma re- what might be happening with Fletcher, Isgrove, Brownhill .?
Not knowing actual advance Season ticket sales, money from the FA, level of support from the owner and what the plans were to raise money from the sale of players, time looks to have caught up with us and who knows that once it was in the public domain that our players might be stalling on new offers other clubs made their move.

It is of course all hypotheses JC because neither of the parties have come out and given a consistent account that tallies and so we are all trying to second guess the likely sequence of events.

 

I'm not saying that we should have done just that it's perfectly possible that they would have signed if we had asked them. I suspect Mansford leaving had a big impact as I don't think we would have got caught in tbe same way if he had stayed.

It's important to live within your means. You could also put relegation clauses in any contract though (it's fairly common practice)

 

I'm pretty sure if Mansford had still been at the club, negotiations may have been better and we may have snagged 1 of the 4.

Once they didn't sign, what were the options? Hope we reach the playoffs and all will be well. Sell them to generate some cash to then bring in the next cycle. Or whatever happened, let them go for free at seasons end.

The player has all the power and they'll do what suits them best. We don't know what went on behind the scenes. Only reason to look back is to learn and take it forward.

Its a new guy in the CEOs seat, new ideas, fresh perspective. Let's look forward.

 

They wouldn't have been in a position to demand that as they had yet to prove themselves.

If we are so risk averse that we don't have any confidence in our own players we might as well pack in as we will never have a chance of keeping players, and we will lose them for less than their true value.

 

Let us look at this from the point of view of the player.

So, you are Conor Hourihane. You are Irish and have no connection to any English Club. You are 24 years of age and you know that realistically your best chance of earning a decent pension will come in the next 7 years. You have an agent who takes 10% of everything you earn for advising you how to maximise your career earnings. You have just had two successful seasons playing for Barnsley FC, the second of which resulted in promotion to the most competitive environment in English football. You have 1 year left on your contract. Let us forget what Conor is supposed to have said because his willingness to re-sign for BFC depends upon the amount of money he was offered and we do not know what those demands might have been.

So let us assume that the club approached him with an offer. In my opinion, this is how the conversation with the agent would have gone.

Agent: Barnsley want you to sign a 2 year extension.
Conor: How much are they offering?
Agent: £x
Conor: What do you advise.
Agent: I think you can do better. Barnsley have a pay budget that will be in the bottom 4 in the division.
Conor: But no-one knows whether I can perform in the division yet.
Agent: That's true, but I think that you can and what can we lose by waiting. The Barnsley contract will still be on the table at the end of the season.
Conor: But I will be losing out on higher pay for the whole of this season, and I might get an injury.
Agent: True, but the amount of money available from other Championship teams puts any offer that Barnsley could make in deep shade. There is a small risk, but we are gambling a very small stake against a potential huge pay out.
Conor: That's true.
Agent: We just tell Barnsley that we are thinking about it, keeping our options open, and that we will talk again at the end of the season. There will be other options then. We can sign the contract on offer, Barnsley may chose to increase the offer, or you will be a free agent at the end of your contract and without a transfer fee there will be other offers to consider. As you get nearer to the end of your contract, Barnsley will be under increasing pressure to sell or lose out on your value. In January, you will have probably proved yourself at this level and Barnsley will probably have to cash in. You might well have your choice of clubs. The agent will then produce and long list of fact and figures to substantiate his opinion. He will give details of discussions he has had with other potential employers. He will leave his client in no doubt that his best choice is to keep his options open and let his contract run down.
Conor: OK, I'm convinced. We'll do that then.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ls-agent-reveals-footballs-dirty-secrets.html

It's in the agents self interest to move his players on. That's the way that they make their millions.
As alluded to in the above attachment they go to great lengths to secure a deal.
Up to January 2017 clubs in all leagues paid agents £220 million. Of that figure £174 million changed hands in the Premiership with £42.4 million being spent by Championship clubs.! That's money that doesn't get " recycled" it goes out of the game. It's absolutely obscene.

 

It obviously didnt take Swansea long to buy Alfie Mawson with relativley no Championship experience, surely he will have been on their radar from the season before.

 

Yes, but he couldn't have demanded a 300% pay rise from us until he had proved himself at that level. Swansea's opinions and willingness to pay are irrelevant.

 

That was their opinion he was worth that and their willingness to pay. He couldn't have demanded a 300% from us at the point in the season - particularly after his performance at Huddersfield.

 

The scout from Swansea obviously naffed happily off home after Mawson scored.

If he'd stayed till the end we'd be a lot poorer.

 

That sounds like absolutely pathetic attempts at negotiating by Barnsley to be honest with you.

Conor: I don't want to sign an extension because my agent says that in a year I will be able to earn much more money.
Us: yes but what about now? What about if you get an injury tomorrow? Here's what we can do Conor. We can offer you a pay rise today if you sign a years extension. But here's the sweetener, if at the end of the season a club comes in offering you more than £15,000 a week, a figure that frankly we cannot match. Then we will let you go for a lower than market value of just £3m, a price which may sound a lot but remember that for you to command £15,000 a week you will have had to prove yourself capable and if you have proven yourself capable then a few of just £3m will not put off anybody capable of paying those wages. How does that sound?

Not even worth mentioning? Ok

 

And let's remember that until we decide to sell it makes not a blind bit of difference whether a club feels like offering 50p a week or £5m a week because there is no way for that club to pay that player those wages without us selling him

 

Would be interesting to know when they first notified us of their interest. Daft of us not to get in there first.

 

In this imaginary conversation that I related between Conor and his agent, the alternatives available to Conor were fully explored and the downside of rejecting the club's offer were put to him by his agent. The conversation was imaginary, but I do not see any advantage to either Conor or Barnsley FC in making/accepting the offer that you describe (without discussing any sum of money involved). You seem to believe that players' agents are naïve, and that they will be only too willing to recommend acceptance of any offer, no matter how thinly veiled the ulterior motive. I'm sorry but the world is not like that. Agents do not stay in business long if they acquire a reputation for being easily conned. You simply have to assume intelligence on both sides of the negotiating table.

My view on the whole thing is that good players hold all the cards. There is no strategy that will keep a good player at the club, particularly one who is being paid well below his market value. The club simply has to treat players as a crop that must be harvested, and the proceeds invested in the next crop. We, the fans, have to learn to move on, to find new heroes. You are only going to tear yourself apart looking for a scapegoat if you do not learn this lesson. It is the only way that we can survive when we are out-gunned financially. Buy - improve - sell - move on.

 

You think it's conning a player to increase his wages with a get out clause for the player if a big move comes along? I think it's sensible personally. I certainly don't think it's naive.

I also don't think I need to be taught a lesson.

Players may hold the cards according to some but in reality there are thousands of footballers and only 33 football clubs in this country ranked higher than us.

 

The reason governments do not print money in order to get themselves out of debt is that it causes inflation. When you get more money chasing the same level of resources, everything cost more. It is a basic lesson of economics. It is a lesson that is currently being played out in football. Because of the Sky £billions, there is more money chasing a limited pool of talent. Yes there are thousands of footballers, but the pool of talent, the number of players with the talent to make it at the very top is no bigger than it has ever been. Now I am not suggesting that Conor Hourihane has the talent to make it at the very top. I do not think that he has. But that restricted pool means that the search for players who have what it takes washes down to those with less talent, and Conor has benefitted. The problem for Barnsley FC is that it does not have as much cash as most in the second tier of English football. That means that we cannot compete with teams in our league on the basis of how much cash we can spend. We are bound to lose out. We are bound to go bust. We have to compete in a different way and the way that we are doing so gives us hope of being competitive at this level. But it does rely on not becoming too attached to players. The sale of players has to be seen as part of our business plan. We, the fans, have to accept that it is the only way that we can compete. Rather than constantly fighting the players, the club and the players have to have a common goal. Improving them and selling them on for profit is that common goal. It means that we are united in our aims. It means that both parties profit from taking money off clubs with much more than we have.

I know that competition at every level is the backbone of being a football fan. It goes to the very heart of everything, the way that you think, the way that you behave. What I am asking is that you try to leave that behind for a moment, that you try to look at the best way for the club to survive at tier 2 level without the same sums of money as all the other teams at that level and see if you can find a better plan than the one we are using. If not, then support the plan.

 

Governments do please see Quantative Easing. Surprised at you there.


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