Everybody needs to stop looking at transfer fees as the actual value of a player. Every player on our books is an asset and as such has running costs like wages and all other "cost to company" expenses (think like facilities, education, equipment, insurance, social security, etc.). For example, if we sign and keep him for 5 years before selling, and the average weekly "cost to company" is 10k, that is another 2.6m for 5 years. And that doesn't include the time wasted by coaches and non-coaching staff, nor it does the alternative costs (what if we signed someone else with that money, what if we played another academy player in his position, etc..).
So, when people say we can easily recoup the transfer amount later, that's really not true. It is possible but by no means with "a good chance".