Undisclosed

Car Dealership

Idiot: “Hey up, I’m after a car mate, just sold my old one for 5k and I’ve got another 5k in the bank, how much is that car over there?”

Car Dealer: “10k buddy, exactly 10k”

I’d be fuming if we were bragging how much we’d sold everyone for, every penny counts, more so for us than most.

 

Do you honestly believe that clubs and agents won't be leaking this information to other clubs and agents who want to know? Our players and staff can't take a **** without it being leaked on Twitter and there's no financial gain there, when money's involved it becomes even easier to get someone to talk

 

It baffles me when people get annoyed over transfer fees being undisclosed. Why does it matter?

People make their own minds up anyway about whether we've got a good fee for a player or not. In that respect, it makes sense for the club not to disclose fee's. They're only opening themselves up to the people who say 'if Toney is worth £10m Woodrow, is worth £20m'.

 

Agree. I can't see what they have to gain from disclosing it.

 

I don’t doubt that happens, but not to an extent where everyone knows exactly what’s in each other’s bank accounts.

There’s a reason most clubs keep fees undisclosed. I appreciate there is distrust from fans, revealing fees might help build some trust back, but it wouldn’t for everyone. The benefits of revealing and gaining some trust isn’t worth the benefit of keeping your transfer budget completely hidden and not overspending.

 

I think there's another good reason for not disclosing the fee, when we try to buy a player, the selling club can't say to themselves "Barnsley just got x-milllion for Morris so we can bump the price up". It simply creates a better bargaining position.

 

Alternatively the other club may also have a false belief in that we have received quite a large fee, when all we got was 100k up front, for example

Works both ways

 

But the selling club will be well aware what we got. Let's for example say we make a bid for Alfie May, do you think Cheltenham won't know how much we got for Woodrow and Morris? Of course they will. Football circles talk. They will know someone somewhere who will be able to tell them.

 

I bow to your obviously superior knowledge of the inner workings of football transfer business.... Me, I know nuffink.

 

Gotta be honest and say I just can’t see a positive for revealing the transfer fee.
If it was deemed a good amount it would just create why are we not spending comments and if it was not enough it would just create critical comments from fans.
There would be exceptions of course but like you say wouldn’t be worth the aggro.

 

Doubt they will know.
They would have a far better idea than us and probably would be in accurate ball park but I doubt very much they would know exact figures.

 

My main reason why I'd ban undisclosed fees is that it would help prevent **** football owners from a. Syphoning money out of clubs and b. Spending millions they dont have undetected until 3 years later when the club's in admin.

Personally I'd also ban all add-ons in transfer fees so that when a player is bought that buying club knows that's the amount they need to pay. It's transparent and everyone is clear. At the moment we could buy a league 2 player for half a million plus half a million if he makes 50 appearances plus half a million if he scores 20 goals in a season plus half a million if we're promoted plus half a million if he gets an international call up etc etc. Suddenly the half a million few we paid has turned into 2 or 3 million. Now ok that's the buying club's fault but I can see how it happens because a lot of football clubs are run by people who don't think ahead at all.

I'd either get rid of the add-ons at all and if that means we have to pay £1m for a player up front instead of £500k with a possibility of it raising to £3m then so be it. It would help prevent the scattergun approach to signing potential young players that some club's including ourselves have been guilty of. It'll never happen but I wish it would