Coombs wrote:
Tambourine Man wrote:

Not too upset that we aren't signing anyone. Would rather this than panicking and blowing a load of cash on someone shit for the sake of it.

Why?

Because a large part of the reason why we are in this mess is the fact that we have overpaid for average players that we now cannot get rid off. Partey and Aouar were the right profile of player to target. We have missed out on them and I would rather not see us now spend that money on projects that may or may not make it. 

No one we can realistically sign is going to be better than what we have without overpaying so let's just ride the season out and take stock of what is needed at the end of it. Then next summer be more aggressive and be so earlier on. 

So another lost and pointless season. I could get hit by a car tomorrow, ain't nobody got time for this shit.

All our 'targets' (Aouar, Partey, Coutinho, Jorginho) played for their clubs this w/end, so it doesn't look likely there'll be any action for any of those.

If we do sign someone (big IF), I reckon it'll be someone we have not been linked to previously. 19 hours to go.

We could also be getting punished for dropping Raul. If he was tight with all the snakes and part of their world of briefcase payments, we might've just sent ourselves back to the pre-Raul days of above board deals for Park and Joe Campbell.

Coombs wrote:

So another lost and pointless season. I could get hit by a car tomorrow, ain't nobody got time for this shit.

On the flipside, next summer is nailed on to be a big one for us with the amount of expirings we have. If we fineigle CL football it could be even bigger

Claudius wrote:

We could also be getting punished for dropping Raul. If he was tight with all the snakes and part of their world of briefcase payments, we might've just sent ourselves back to the pre-Raul days of above board deals for Park and Joe Campbell.

There's still briefcase payments going on, word to cedrics 4 year extravaganza

That was during Raul’s tenure

Claudius wrote:

That was during Raul’s tenure

Certainly appears his departure was part of clearing the decks in regards to making sure we signed players Arteta wanted if we were going to spend sizable funds.

What are our non-HG numbers like now the UEFA window has closed - do we still have a surplus?

Anzac wrote:

What are our non-HG numbers like now the UEFA window has closed - do we still have a surplus?

We have to drop 2 of our first teamers out. I am guessing we will drop Sokratis and Mari (Since he's injured)

Clrnc wrote:
Anzac wrote:

What are our non-HG numbers like now the UEFA window has closed - do we still have a surplus?

We have to drop 2 of our first teamers out. I am guessing we will drop Sokratis and Mari (Since he's injured)

We'll probably try to loan out a couple of players to the championship. Really Ozil should be dropped out, we know Arteta doesn't want to play him.

Im still holding a tiny piece of hope that in certain weeks suddenly Ozil wakes up and feel like doing something productive for us.

In reality though what a fucking piece of useless cunt. Hard to forgive a player like him, utter sabotage

I hope we stay strong on Ozil. Its a battle of wills at this stage, he should never start for us again.

Sounds like Mari and Cedric missed the cut according to pl website?

Cedric, jesus what a mess

Qwiss! wrote:

Cedric, jesus what a mess

There has to be a way to jail Raul for that one.

These agents though. They get to eat a cut on the player’s pay. Then for whatever reason, they also want to get these 10-30% cuts on the inter-club transaction fee. As if clubs can’t just call each other. It’s such a massive market inefficiency. All other mature markets, especially for such expensive services have reasonable transaction fees in the order of 0,5 to 5%.

It’s much easier for us to build out a contract team around Huss Famy and pay them £1-2m a year to execute all trades. But for whatever reason, football has allowed agents to capture and constrict it

Agents have their place in the sport, if they aren't there players get exploited to hell by clubs and leagues. Plenty of agents invest their own money into young talents and care for them like they're family, it's mostly cancerous trash like Mendes or Zahavi who give them a bad name.

Agents are like business consultants to clubs, they actually like dealing with them as they cover plenty of work for them plus they're useful to have around to play the fall guy whenever there's an issue with a player when more than half the time it's the club who fucked up.

Claudius wrote:

These agents though. They get to eat a cut on the player’s pay. Then for whatever reason, they also want to get these 10-30% cuts on the inter-club transaction fee. As if clubs can’t just call each other. It’s such a massive market inefficiency. All other mature markets, especially for such expensive services have reasonable transaction fees in the order of 0,5 to 5%.

It’s much easier for us to build out a contract team around Huss Famy and pay them £1-2m a year to execute all trades. But for whatever reason, football has allowed agents to capture and constrict it

i just know this burns the american owners up. it's so inefficient. the players don't benefit either, too much of what should be their money is going to agents.

I wonder if there are any players who represent themselves and if we will start seeing more of it.

I knew that Flamster never had an agent and negotiated all of his contracts/moves himself.

Most players are too dumb.

It's a bit like the real estate market right? Till the technology caught up over the last few years, % commissions were the norm. There is no real benefit to be obtained in lower fees, so any agent who goes into the market quoting (let's say) a $1M fee per move (or something like that) is unlikely to get any attention since a small difference in an agent's rolodex / relationships can cost the athlete many times the fee. The solution here has to be something completely disruptive like a standard contract with all possible clauses that one can choose from (I know that's a million miles away) or a corporatization of the market with someone (say) guaranteeing an athlete's paycheck to start off with and gain critical mass.

mentalvortex wrote:

I wonder if there are any players who represent themselves and if we will start seeing more of it.

I knew that Flamster never had an agent and negotiated all of his contracts/moves himself.

i read many years ago (i'm talking invincibles time) that james milner was represented by the PFA who offer their services at a much lower rate.

Meatwad wrote:
mentalvortex wrote:

I wonder if there are any players who represent themselves and if we will start seeing more of it.

I knew that Flamster never had an agent and negotiated all of his contracts/moves himself.

i read many years ago (i'm talking invincibles time) that james milner was represented by the PFA who offer their services at a much lower rate.

Gary Neville did that too IIRC, just always wanted to keep signing for United so never really pushed for much more money and had the PFA deal with his contract.

I think that could be an option too in the future. Nowadays wages are so high that players will be financially independent for the rest of their lives anyway, so as long as wages are in line with the market it might not be a big deal to negotiate. Things were very different just 15-16 years ago though. I remember when Rivaldo signed for Milan. Back then it was still a big deal that he got them to buy him a car, a flat, etc as part of the deal. Today someone like Jude Bellingham probably got a big enough sign-on bonus from Dortmund to buy twenty cars.

Qwiss! wrote:
Meatwad wrote:

i read many years ago (i'm talking invincibles time) that james milner was represented by the PFA who offer their services at a much lower rate.

Gary Neville did that too IIRC, just always wanted to keep signing for United so never really pushed for much more money and had the PFA deal with his contract.

Scholes was the same apparently united just offered the a fair deal, and to be honest they were getting paid more than they would anywhere else in england and they were all reluctant to leave for other countries so its a pretty simple negotiation.

I don't for a second believe most football agents are good for footballers. They're sharks out there to make money and there's no chance in hell they'll accept making less even if it's in their clients best interests or against their wishes. They're in it for themselves and those who can look after their interests, that's not footballers, it's greaseballs like Raul who can make them rich. Estate agents are exactly the same, it's unreal how shady that world is and there's no way football isn't much, much worse.

Every now and then I think about the fact that someone as unskilled and talentless as Mino Raiola has raked home hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't know where else in society that ever happens, outside the lottery and organised crime. And even the drug cartels have to work for it.

I don't think the real estate market comparison works entirely either. Maybe for unknown players, but the ones that the whole world knows about don't need to convince clubs through talk the same way a real estate egent does. If an agent wants a 10m fee for arranging a transfer, you can't convince me that the player couldn't have gotten a better deal if he cut out the agent. Pay the player some of those 10m, and it's a win-win situation.

So players need agents.
I think it’s easy sitting here to underestimate the amount of work involved in a transfer. There are tons of papers to do. And there are lots of ways you can structure a player’s payments. You need to come to an agreement on his worth through some combination of guaranteed payments and bonuses. Again, the more sophisticated parties will always do better here (if a team has better modeling, on average it will beat the players in contract structuring). Hence players need sophisticated agents, not gangsters.

Teams need the same capabilities as they negotiate amongst each other, but given that they each do dozens of negotiations annually, these can be internal capabilities, hence there is little need for agents to facilitate team to team negotiations unless they are giving specific - eg translation or modeling. What we are seeing in the industry is different. There are a group of people who are specifically gatekeepers for anything to happen. Even when teams are buying players who are not affiliated with these agents, the gatekeepers get involved, as happened with Pépé last year. These people are simply extracting value from football. They are not adding any qualitative or quantitative value.

Claudius wrote:

So players need agents.
I think it’s easy sitting here to underestimate the amount of work involved in a transfer. There are tons of papers to do.

This is what Quincy means though. It's not like Mino Raiola himself handles that paperwork. He just hires someone who's paid by the hour to do it for him, and then he pockets a massive cut of the transfer fee. Bloke got €25 million out of Pogba's transfer to United among other things. Why wouldn't a player just hire someone to do the paper work instead for an hourly rate, like a legal firm? What function has the agent? This all feels a bit like the scene in Office Space where the fat nervous bloke is trying to explain to the downsizing business consultants what it is he actually does:

Klaus wrote:
Claudius wrote:

So players need agents.
I think it’s easy sitting here to underestimate the amount of work involved in a transfer. There are tons of papers to do.

This is what Quincy means though. It's not like Mino Raiola himself handles that paperwork. He just hires someone who's paid by the hour to do it for him, and then he pockets a massive cut of the transfer fee. Bloke got €25 million out of Pogba's transfer to United among other things. Why wouldn't a player just hire someone to do the paper work instead for an hourly rate, like a legal firm?

Yeah. Agree. Get a professional in.
I honestly think these guys only get to participate because they have access from club and league  executives who also participate in these fees. If these execs are only making £1/2m a year and agents are making 10-20x that, it’s worth giving them access for a fee.  People with professional qualifications at stake would be less inclined to do this.

Agents will get a youth player to the ideal sized club for his ability.
Keep in regualr contact and keep them focused.
Motivate them get them to belive in themself when they need it
Negatiate the next best move
Negotiate contracts
negotiate sponsors
Find them the best financial guys to make their money work
Explain about investments etc.
Maintian good a good image for the player
Create hype by getting storie of intrest from bigger clubs
pay for media people to create highlights reels for the player
Create a plan for the player for his career and keep him on track
provide alibys when the misses gerts suspicious
organise holidays, cars, sort out best areas to live and reasonable amounts to spend keeping their future in mind

Plenty of ashole agents but their are some good ones.

Exactly speedy, they control a players entire life. You want me to believe they don't exploit that power for personal gain?

@claud. Execs participate because it gives them an advantage. Unless you introduce tightly controlled regulations and/or caps, they'll continue to give these guys power. Even then, more of it will probably just happen under the table.

Oh Speedy, that much is clear. I’m not talking about supporting the players. I’m talking about the relationships between teams. Why are agents taking disproportionate fees for those? That makes no sense.

Claudius wrote:

Oh Speedy, that much is clear. I’m not talking about supporting the players. I’m talking about the relationships between teams. Why are agents taking disproportionate fees for those? That makes no sense.

I asked an agent about the pogba deal, he reckoned most of that money will be kicked back to pogbas family through tax loopholes, and no player would accpt and agent making that much off the deal. Maskes sence pogbas family probably arent set up for tax avoidance.

goon wrote:

Exactly speedy, they control a players entire life. You want me to believe they don't exploit that power for personal gain?

@claud. Execs participate because it gives them an advantage. Unless you introduce tightly controlled regulations and/or caps, they'll continue to give these guys power. Even then, more of it will probably just happen under the table.

Not really players swap agents all the time. The players ultimatly in control. And the most personal gain is in the player having the best career possible although their are exceptions players having a great career and getting paid more are closely linked.

Klaus wrote:

Every now and then I think about the fact that someone as unskilled and talentless as Mino Raiola has raked home hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't know where else in society that ever happens, outside the lottery and organised crime. And even the drug cartels have to work for it.

The amount they earn is absolutely insane. Some of them earn more than majority of the football clubs in lower leagues.