Selling Club Interested & Player Interested

If the selling club and the player are interested, then assuming the price selling club’s price and the wage demands of the player are acceptable to the buying club, then the deal will kick off. If the terms being offered by the selling club and the player are not acceptable, the buying club can either attempt to negotiate with both parties, or walk away from the deal.

Selling Club Interested & Player Not Interested

It’s pretty rare for this to happen, generally if players find out that their manager sees them as dispensible, they’ll want to move. An excellent example of this happening was Winston Bogarde, who signed a very expensive, long term contract with Chelsea (much to Bogarde’s surprise), before everyone discovered that he was cack. He then went on to sit in the reserves for 4 years, and earned a crapload of money. Read all about it here.

Selling Club Not Interested & Player Interested

This should never happen. If the selling club doesn’t want to sell the player, then the buying club has no legal recourse to discuss the matter with the player. There are a number of different factors which could change this, including the Bosman Ruling, The Webster Ruling. The buying club could also tap up the player, although that is not only illegal but deeply immoral. In this situation, however, the selling club is still at a weakness, as if the player really wants to move, they’re not really committed to the cause of their club. This often means that the selling clubs hand is forced and they need to sell the player. The small benefit for the selling club is that they can hopefully replace a player who doesn’t want to be there with one who does. A good example of this was Joleon Lescott’s transfer to Manchester City, the player clearly wanted to move, Everton did not want to sell, but Lescott kicked up such a fuss about it that in the end, Everton needed to sell him.

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Football agents represent a player’s interests to clubs

This is, ostensibly the sole reason agents exist. They’re there to represent the interests of the players to a club. Footballers are not deemed capable of dealing with their own contract negotiations and as such need to pay 15% of their income to have someone do it for them.

In a pure world, the agent would be there to help out with contact negotiation or renegotiation, every couple of years. Where it gets a little murky is if the player wants to leave. In theory the players current club should inform the player of any offers from clubs, but an enterprising agent will scout through their contact list to speak to directors, coaches, managers and players to try and drum up some interest for their client. On the other side of the coin, the player might not want to leave, but another club might try to sway the players interest by either speaking to the players agent (which is not exactly legal) or speaking to the players current club. We’ll cover the rest of this process in a separate article.

What can happen is agents that have no relationship to anyone, can engineer a player move by talking to the buying club and the player. The agent will try to sway the players interest by promises of trophies, wine and women, and try to sway the buying clubs head by promising the player will bring glory to the club and certainly at this bargain price. If this is successful, the agent will make a big slice of the transfer fee, all for the cost of a few phone calls.

Media Liason

Another way to get a transfer rocking is by releasing information to the media. A large proportion of the crap you read in the papers is the result of agent talk. It’s very difficult to put a finger on how much exactly is agent talk, but behind the scenes here at Football Transfer Rumours Dot Com, we’re working to do exactly that. More on that later. Anyway the point is that by releasing some rumours to the news media, it forces the hand of all parties involved. If the rumour picks up enough steam, then the buying and selling clubs involved in it, as well as the player will need to react. The reaction will give all parties some insight into the opinions of the other parties involved in the transfer. It also could start the conversation between any interested parties.

From this point, a clever agent can further stimulate the transfer by representing the interests of each party; acting as a go between to all concerned parties, and releasing timely information to the press to keep the ball rolling.

We’ve covered the rest of the football transfer process in greater detail elsewhere. Over the next few days we’ll try to shed some more light on some of the other players in football transfers.

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It’s under these awful circumstances that football transfers are made. To make this a little easier for you, we’ve created a list of the top issues which affect football transfers. This should also give you an insight into how transfer rumours get started.

Manager’s Need / Desire for the Player

This speaks for both the buying club and the selling club. If the selling club manager views the player as fundamental to the team, then he will make a case for keeping the player. If he thinks the player is expendable, if he thinks he can use the money that would be made from the sale of the player to build a better squad, then he probably won’t object. An example of this would be the sale of Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United. Spurs had a plethora of strikers, and the money that Manchester United were waving in front of them could be much better spent on building strength in depth in the Spurs Squad. This gets more complex when the clubs financial situation has an impact on the available money to spend on players.

Conversely a buying club will have a certain amount available to spend on players. If the buying club’s manager / director of football / Roman Abramovich wants a certain player, he will make a case to the buying club’s owners / board / Roman Abramovich. If they approve the purchase, an offer will be made to the selling club. From this point, negotiations can take between the buying and selling club.

Selling Club’s Financial Situation

If the selling club is at risk with their finances, it will increase the likelihood of the sale of a player, as well as decreasing the power of the selling club’s negotiating power. The fire sale at Portsmouth is a good example of this, particularly the deadline day transfer of Niko Kranjcar. Previously (8 days earlier) Pompey had said they wouldn’t sell for less than £8 million, yet sold him to Spurs on the transfer deadline day for a quarter of that.

Player’s Contract

The length of time that a player has left on his contract impacts the selling clubs control over the player’s sale. The more time left on the contract, the less incentive the selling club has to sell him. A example of this was the proposed move of Javier Mascherano to Barcelona this summer, given Liverpool were unwilling to sell him, and he had three years left on his contract, no matter how much he complained, there was no need for Liverpool to sell him. Conversely the Bosman ruling has meant that players who have reached the end of their contract are able to transfer to any club they want. The recent Webster Ruling has meant that players are able to walk away from a contract after a fixed period of time. The effect of these two rulings has been that if a player is unhappy at their current club and is near the end of their contract, then the player’s current club needs to sell the player if they have any hope of recouping any money from the player.

Player’s Desire to Leave

The two rulings above mean the player has a big impact on football transfers. If the player is happy, generally he won’t move, if he is unhappy then more than likely he will be able to engineer a move.

Buying Club’s Financial Situation

The amount of money the buying club has to offer the selling club for a transfer fee, as well as the player in terms of salary and bonuses has a direct impact on the buying clubs ability to attract players. Ultimately, if you don’t have the money, then you can’t get the player. An interesting example of this has been the transfer of Aruna Dindane, at one stage the condition of the transfer going through was that if Pompey went bankrupt, the cash for the player would be guaranteed by Portsmouth’s TV revenue. In the end this got too hard and he ended up going on loan for a year with an option to buy at the end of the loan period.

Buying Club’s League Position

Ultimately, the success of a club is essential to their ability to attract players. Manchester City have failed to attract any real football superstars, despite their vast wealth simply because they haven’t won anything since 1976.

Player’s Agent/s

Agents get a regular income from a player’s salary, somewhere between 10% and 20%; Agents get a big chunk of any transfer fee. So, if they want to make a lot of money, the best way to do so is to get their star players to transfer clubs.

Other Agents

This is where it can get particularly shady. An agent, who may not have anything to do with a player, can speak to clubs that might be interested in that player to attempt to engineer a move. They may also involve the media to exaggerate the interest. If they are successful in creating this transfer, they will charge a commission for helping the transfer through.

Media

Many football transfer rumours come about as the result of agent speak. While it’s difficult to prove, another major source of transfer rumours are the need of newspapers to fill pages. The role of the media in a football transfer is to fan the flames. An interesting approach to tapping up a player without technically tapping them up is for the buying club to have a friendly journalist release an article about the buying club being interested in a certain player. The manager can then go on record as saying ‘X has a contract with Y Club, which I respect, but X is a fantastically talent player and any manager would love to have him’. This not only explicitly alerts the player to the interest of the buying club, but also forces the selling club’s hand. They either need to respond with a bog standard ‘not for sale’ response, or release a statement about a fee.

As you can see, there are a large number of factors which impact a football transfer and a football transfer rumour. Hopefully this article has also given you an insight into the ludicrous stories you read in the paper every day.

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Is this Franck going to change his mind about Louis Van Gaal?

The bizarre sexual antics of Ribery and Van Gaal have caused pundits to speculate that the Ribery might be changing his mind about the Dutchman. It was not much more than 2 weeks ago when Ribery stated:

“It is important that you have faith in the coach, but with him (Van Gaal) it is complicated,”

“This is the first time that my contact with a coach is not positive. There’s not much feeling between us.”

On the positive side, Bayern are looking a little stronger this season, Arjen Robben provides an alternate attacking threat to Ribery, and can certainly match the Frenchman for pace, and on a good day, can match him for skill. The problems with Robben have always been about attitude and his fitness. Their defence is still quite dodgy, but if they can attack with flair, that might be less of a problem. The laborious point that I’m trying to make is that if Ribery is going to stay, it will be because Bayern win the Bundesliga and mount a significant challenge on the Champions League. Bayern certainly have a stronger team than they did last season, but it’s not obvious whether the additional strength is going to deal with the threats in a very competitive Bundesliga, and allow them to struggle through the Champions League. Their group is no easy task, with a resurgent Juventus and French Champions Bordeaux all posing significant threats to Bayern’s qualification to the knockout rounds.

It’s a really long stretch to imagine Ribery at Bayern next season, but stranger things have happened.

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Is Rafa going to buy Van Der Vaart with his imagination money?

The Times is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one, even by their own admission: “…given that the Holland playmaker would cost about £10 million and Benítez has nearly exhausted his budget, there is little chance of a deal”. So no mention of sources and an admission that Liverpool don’t have the funds to buy the player, which would make it impossible for a deal to go through.

The idea is certainly appealing, while Van der Vaart is certainly the worst of the Dutch forwards at Real, he’s still fairly handy, can play across the front three, score goals, setup goals. All of these things, Liverpool are looking for, but considering they’ve spent their last pennies on a 30 year old Greek centre half, they’re going to have a really hard time finding anyone.

The only thing that could work in their favour is if no other club makes an offer for the Van der Vaart, and Madrid need to sell. If these stars align correctly, then there is a small chance that he could end up at Anfield in the next week or so.

The Dutch forward was linked with Chelsea earlier in the year, and was said to be anxious to leave Real:

“Fortunately for me, Chelsea want me, so I have everything clear – if Guus Hiddink remains at the helm of Chelsea I hope the signing will be closed soon. I want to leave Real Madrid.”

Slightly odd in and of itself as Hiddink was never staying at Chelsea and the deal never materialised. There are a few clubs still sniffing around, so Liverpool have almost no chance.

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Look, it's probably not happening, but it's interesting innit?

Yesterday, Paolo Fabbri, Vidic’s “advisor” alledgedly tells El Mundo Deportivo

“It would be a dream for Vidic to play for Barcelona, as he wants to play in La Liga.

“We have to take a close look at the situation but things are complicated right now. Manchester United have just lost Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez, and they do not want to lose another important player.”

Yet later, he denies this

“I never said these things. Nemanja is happy in Manchester. If Barcelona do make an offer for him then it is up to United to make a decision.”

Interesting, while we don’t want to comment on what why a footballer needs an “advisor” on retainer, it’s unlikely that these sourced quotes would be made up. While we do rail against journalistic integrity, it’s a particularly brave journo (and editor) who will knowingly print an unsubstantiated, named quote.

So what is going on then?

It’s entirely believeable that Barca are still interested in Vidic, they’re not stronger in defence than they were last season, and, oddly enough Guardiola identified the defence as the area that needed the most improvement. And then went on to swap a Samuel Eto’o and €40 million on the least defensive signing in the world, Zlatan.

It’s likely that Mr Fabbri has spoken to Barca, and wanted to send out a signal of intent. Although Vidic has pledged his loyalty to the cause, there’s rarely smoke without fire, while he may not move this window, it looks more likely that he will end up at the Camp Nou.

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