Undisclosed fee

Gillington

What do you think when your club signs a player for an Undisclosed fee? Me I think all fee's should be announced when a player is signed etc,give fans an idea of what they're spending (but being a City fan that shouldnt matter to us blah blah).

I know the selling club probably doesnt want to announce that the player they signed last season for 5mil(example),has just recently left for 500k and they'd rather not openly admit that they lost 4.5mil plus wages on a flop but sure dont we find out,albeit in a roundabout way,when they release their profits or losses for the season?

daithijjj

Could be any number of reasons really. Deals can be more complicated than just paying cash up front, there could be clearance of previous debt to a club, the fee may not even be able to be determined if there is a complicated structure to it, appearances etc etc etc. Literally could be any amount of nonsense in a players contract. I remember once a deal was struck many years ago (i think for cascarino) where the fee was a set of training gear and boots for everyone in the squad (might be an old wives tale that one though)

Could be as simple as everyone involved doesnt want it going public as they are all involved in other (possible) deals running at the same time and dont want to show their hand.

Dempsey

The selling club could be set to go after a target and dont want the other club to have a good idea of what they can spend. As said its mainly about not showing your hand to other clubs who could use the information against you in the market.

That_Guy

If I was a shareholder in the club I'd want to know how much they spend on players.

Pinturicchio

That_Guy wrote: »

If I was a shareholder in the club I'd want to know how much they spend on players.

Clubs with shareholders include their transfer spending and income in their anual financial reports.

Helix

That_Guy wrote: »

If I was a shareholder in the club I'd want to know how much they spend on players.

youd find out in your shareholders report thingy wouldnt you?

That_Guy

Helix wrote: »

youd find out in your shareholders report thingy wouldnt you?

But I wanna know now!!!

/throws toys out of pram

Gillington

That_Guy wrote: »

But I wanna know now!!!

/throws toys out of pram

I think with Mike Ashley involved with your club you'd wanna know where every penny goes!

Soby

Buying club may also not want to put pressure on the player with the fans and media knowing how much they spent on him.

yahoo_moe

Gillington wrote: »

I know the selling club probably doesnt want to announce that the player they signed last season for 5mil(example),has just recently left for 500k and they'd rather not openly admit that they lost 4.5mil plus wages on a flop but sure dont we find out,albeit in a roundabout way,when they release their profits or losses for the season?

I'm not sure you see individual items listed though - I think it might just be overall figures for transfer outlay, transfer incomings, wages, etc.

Also, the profit and loss on players is booked differently than you might expect so you wouldn't just see a loss as direct as what you have there anyway. In the example above, for instance, if that £5m was for a player signed on a 5-year deal, the player is counted as an asset bought for £5m who decreases in value by £1m each year. So by selling him after 1 year, you avoid £4m of amortisation (essentially a loss that would show up in stages over the course of the contract).

That's why a sale like Ibra's wasn't actually as bad as 'gut instinct' would suggest for Barca.

Pinturicchio

Also, when players are sold the sale is immediately entered into the accounts, whilst purchases are spread over the entire period of the contract. It's called plus-valenza in Italy.