A football player is worth...

A fee based on

1) What the buying club is willing to play for him
2) What the selling club is prepared to accept for him

Tribunals will work differently, but at the end of the day, Barnsley Football club, a small club, with limited finances, see's it necessary to allow a player to leave at a cut down price, rather than let them leave for free when there contract has expired. What's wrong with that? My main issue is with giving out 2 year contracts, surely we could tie just a couple of our biggest assets up to three year deals, O'Brien, Steele, Davies, Digby, RNL, there's no need. Then maybe we might get the actual value of a player when we sell him. There's no point comparing ourselves to other clubs, such as Sheffield United and Wednesday, they recieve a bit more for players, because they can afford to tie them up to long term, big money contracts, and in turn recieve a lot of money to break such a player from their contract.

 

Surely 1) and 2) are based on what the market dictates?

 

United don't have a pot to piss in. What they do have is an excellent structure behind the scenes of progressive business men.

They have a youth set up run by people who have been involved within football who are able to recognise develop and secure long term talent to enable best prices should there be interest.

In the last say five years they have turned over the best part of £15m in player sales. In the same period Barnsley if memory serves me correctly excluding butter field haven't made a million.

 

3) The time remaining on his current contract

 

Ii think length of contract, is the main factor these days tbh. I mean look at how much Adam Le Fondre went to Reading for, just 12 months after Rotherham valued him at £2.5million.

 

I think that the situation is considerably more complex than you state, and to understand why, you must look at it from the perspective of the player and his agent, as well as the club.

The player's transfer value, as well as his wage are based upon his market value as Conan says. His transfer value is affected by the length time left on the player's contract, though many have demonstrated that a contract is not worth the paper its written on. In my scenario, a promising 18 year old is approaching the end of his academy contract. He is approached by the club who want him to sign a contract. Let us say that the club believe he is a certainty for the big time and ask him to sign a 5 year contract. What wage do they offer him? They could offer him his value now as a promising player who is not a first team regular. They could offer him a wage based on being a first team regular which is considerably over his value to the club now or they could offer him what they believe his value might be in 5 years, a value that the club will struggle to afford if prediction for his future turn out to be accurate and a value that might be above the wage structure for a seasoned professional. From the player's point of view, the agent advises him not to accept a long term contract on his current worth, obviously. Based upon the fact that he will still be only 23 when the contract comes to an end, the agent may advise signing the second, but the club has the possibility of being left paying over the top for a number of years for a player that fails to make the grade. The third option is of course untenable to the club.

Unfortunately, when a club is operating under very tight financial restrictions, these decisions are very difficult and supporters tend to remember only the ones they get wrong. Remember also, the club does not have the benefit of hindsight when it takes the decision. Supporters tend to complain after an event which always gives them this perspective. If you want to see the effect of a decision to award a 4 year contract at a wage that is not sustainable go wrong, you have only to look at the example of Mike Sheron.