Perspective about transfer fees.

Jericholyte2

Full Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
4,225
So I've been looking around the various threads and everyone keeps going, "50m for Perisic" or, "60m for Dier" and the tirade of abuse Ed gets for this. Whilst the numbers in general are crazy, we need to look at the turnover of the club. This is really the only stat that matters, as it represents what we can afford to spend on squad, first team, key players etc. I found this list from last year....

image.jpg


So last year we broke the world record for a transfer, which was less than 20% of our turnover.

When we look at the turnover from last year, United made £515m. Looking at this, Lukaku cost 14.6%, on a par with Roy Keane. The potential spend on Perisic would equate to 9.7% (using 50m as an estimate) which puts him on a par with Anderson. Surely for a first team squad player this would be an acceptable fee. I understand the complaints about productivity but from a purely financial point of view this makes complete sense.

Look at our rivals and their turnover:

Arsenal: 350m turnover, Lacazette was 15.5%
Chelsea: 335m turnover
Liverpool: 302m turnover, Salah was about 12%
City: 392m turnover, Kyle Walker was about 12%
Spurs: 210m turnover

I think some perspective needs to be used when viewing these figures. Selling clubs are no mugs, they see our figures and know what we can afford for players.
 
Aren't the revenues one year behind the transfer fees? United' revenue in 16/17 is going to be £560m-£570m so the Pogba transfer is even less than 19.6%
 
While I agree with the premise, it doesn't automatically indicate any individual player is worth the fee, just because we can afford it.

For the record, I don't have a problem paying the reported fees, on our apparent targets, this window.
 
Cliche Guevara said:
While I agree with the premise, it doesn't automatically indicate any individual player is worth the fee, just because we can afford it.

For the record, I don't have a problem paying the reported fees, on our apparent targets, this window.
Click to expand...

The point I was looking at was that it's not so much the player's value, but the player's value to United.

For example, 32m Benteke is more valuable to Palace than he would be to us.
 
Pogba was 89m GBP, but yeah it's good to remind people about this now and then.

Nice post, OP. :)
 
Generally speaking I don't particularly give a shit about transfer fees. Pogba, Lukaku, neither bothered me in the slightest. Then I read earlier that we are prepared to go to £60 million for Eric Dier. That pisses me off on general principle. Like paying £20 for a bag of crisps.

Hopefully it's horseshit.
 
The Bloody-Nine said:
Generally speaking I don't particularly give a shit about transfer fees. Pogba, Lukaku, neither bothered me in the slightest. Then I read earlier that we are prepared to go to £60 million for Eric Dier. That pisses me off on general principle. Like paying £20 for a bag of crisps.

Hopefully it's horseshit.
Click to expand...

Likewise this is, comparatively speaking, a similar percentage to Carrick. Seeing as how we're looking to get him to replace Carrick it makes sense.
 
The fees don't tend to be as high as the media quote, remember Pogba was meant to be £100 million when we signed him.
 
Rado_N said:
You're completely right, but wasting your time.
Click to expand...
It depends what the point is. If someone were to argue the rising transfer fees are somehow immoral and wrong, this would be a good point to make. But if you're judging some current transfers happening all over the world, this table is worthless. To stick to the examples given, just because you can afford Pogba and he isn't even that expensive, relatively speaking of course, doesn't make buying him for that much money good business.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
Likewise this is, comparatively speaking, a similar percentage to Carrick. Seeing as how we're looking to get him to replace Carrick it makes sense.
Click to expand...
I never felt like we were paying twice what Carrick was worth. £60 million for Dier is preposterous.

Please be made up, please be made up, please be made up.....
 
The question is not if the club can afford to spend 50m on a player, but should the club spend 50m on players like Perisic, Dier and/or Matic?
 
Keeps It tidy said:
You guys care too much about transfer fees.
Click to expand...

I entirely agree. A player is overpriced if he doesn't improve our team.

To say I'd have Perisic for £15m, but I wouldn't have him for £40m is just foolish. Either he's good enough or he isn't.
 
If you want to do it right, you should include amortization to your calculations.
 
A bit pedantic but transfer fee to operating profit would be a lot more relevant. Clubs revenues have increased but so have costs.
 
Decent stat actually.
Maybe there should've been a cap on prices for fans ey.

They've still gone pretty crazy though, with talk about every decent payer breaking the record every time.
 
@Jericholyte2

A very sensible OP but you're facing a losing battle. You would have better success selling HD 4k ready TV packages to the blind.
 
It is not the only stat that matters. If you spend 50-60m on a player there is both cost and opportunity cost, the latter reflected in fewer opportunities for current players or not signing an alternative. Therefore any fan can rightly express an opinion as to whether we are spending our money wisely or not, and this is independent of the extent to which we can afford the fee.
 
Great OP compared to the feeling based BS that is spread here and in the media.

Wish someone would elaborate on the amortisation and other economic factors.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
image.jpg


I think some perspective needs to be used when viewing these figures. Selling clubs are no mugs, they see our figures and know what we can afford for players.
Click to expand...
I see here you claim Pogba at £100M

Lately i seen him as valued at being sold for 85M or 89M depending on where you read.
Wiki say; €105 million (£89.3 million) That would be last year when the pound had a better valuation against the euro.

Maybe you have a more reliable source but where did you get this price from? Not that it matters that much but it actually brings down the Ratio for Pogba if his fee was 89M its 17.45% of turnover. Still a fair chunk of change but if he can do as well as them around him, Roy Rio and Rooney he'll be well worth the fee IMO
 
Klopp_De_Klown said:
I see here you claim Pogba at £100M

Lately i seen him as valued at being sold for 85M or 89M depending on where you read.
Wiki say; €105 million (£89.3 million) That would be last year when the pound had a better valuation against the euro.

Maybe you have a more reliable source but where did you get this price from? Not that it matters that much but it actually brings down the Ratio for Pogba if his fee was 89M its 17.45% of turnover. Still a fair chunk of change but if he can do as well as them around him, Roy Rio and Rooney he'll be well worth the fee IMO
Click to expand...

They actually weren't my figures but at the time the transfer hadn't been completed so they were going by the media prediction.
 
Interesting OP

I wonder if there's a way to calculate average spend on transfers per major trophy - if only to show Wenger up :)
 
Is turnover really the right metric to compare it to? You don't account for wages or generally speaking the possibility that you might get diminishing returns (for your budget) from that turnover.
 
If anything, this highlights how ridiculous the quoted fee for Perisic is.

Paying the same for a late twenties journeyman who's never shown anything at the highest level as we did for Anderson, a world class talent at the time, and Berbatov, a Premier League star?

Close to what we paid for players like Park and Valencia (admittedly steals in hindsight) is where the Perisic price should be be.
 
Clubs will no doubt look at our turnover and milk us accordingly, I get that. But there’s a debate to be had over whether we should simply accept this as an inevitable state of affairs: Perisic isn’t objectively speaking worth that kind of money, but we just have to pay it. Versus: He isn’t worth that kind of money, so we don’t pay up - we come up with an alternative and at the same time send a signal to future selling clubs.

Anyway, he’d be on Ando’s level then, in terms of the fee. Well, the obvious point to make there would be that he isn’t comparable to Ando. We all know how it turned out, but at the time Ando was a world class talent - and purchased as such. Perisic is an established player and a well known quantity. The reason people find the fee outrageous is mainly that they simply don’t rate said quantity very highly.
 
Jed I. Knight said:
If anything, this highlights how ridiculous the quoted fee for Perisic is.

Paying the same for a late twenties journeyman who's never shown anything at the highest level as we did for Anderson, a world class talent at the time, and Berbatov, a Premier League star?

Close to what we paid for players like Park and Valencia (admittedly steals in hindsight) is where the Perisic price should be be.
Click to expand...
Anderson was never close to being a world class talent.
 
Not quite sure why turnover would have any affect on how much we can spend on players, I would be more concerned about net profit.
 
AndyJ1985 said:
Anderson was never close to being a world class talent.
Click to expand...

Define "world class talent".

Golden Boy award 2003-2016:

2003 Rafael van der Vaart
2004 Wayne Rooney
2005 Lionel Messi
2006 Cesc Fàbregas
2007 Sergio Agüero
2008 Anderson
2009 Alexandre Pato
2010 Mario Balotelli
2011 Mario Götze
2012 Isco
2013 Paul Pogba
2014 Raheem Sterling
2015 Anthony Martial
2016 Renato Sanches
 
You must log in or register to reply here.