Impact of Ronaldo's Exit Strategy on Future Player Contracts

FrankWhite

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How do people think Ronaldo's exit strategy will impact players trying to force their way out of contracts in the future? I think what this exposes is that once dirty laundry starts being aired on social media, clubs have more to lose than even the biggest players. Especially since such a move is far more likely to be instigated by the player.

We already saw a glimps of this in the Antony vs Ajax situation, where he did an interview with Romano in an attempt to force his way out. Nobody really talks about it on here because in that case, it worked out in our favour. More importantly, it worked out in the player's favour too.

Question is, could we see players who want out doing more of this? And if so, how do clubs protect against it? Do they just hold firm and ride it out or cave and give the player want he wants?
 

Greck

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I wish our bench scrubs would do this. Then we might actually be able to shed them. The more likely truth is it won't have much impact. Players don't want out of the lucrative deals we give and they definitely don't want to be sacked with no compensation. The notion that Ronaldo "won" is an idiotic cope among his supporters. He hasn't even gotten a new club so we can't yet quantify how much he really shot himself. He's not legal savvy and likely didn't know it would lead to being let go without pay. I mean he was just crying about the 25% CL cut to his salary, he wasn't ready to give it all up. Mendes would have advised against if he took counsel.
 

atkar83

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If Ronaldo was an important and functioning part of our team he wouldn't have been let go. He's been ineffectual and far too expensive so we cut ties. If someone younger and more useful did this we'd probably be more forgiving and looking for alternative solutions
 

Passitlikescholes

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Zero impact

It was a unique situation of a player who once was one of the top 2 in the world coming to the end of his career and being a hinderance.

Very unlikely to have the same context for future players. The club still yields power over the players in these situations.
 

Sky1981

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If this was a prime Ronaldo with 150M market value no way in hell we'd offer him Mutual Termination.

We'd either cozy up to his arse, or simply took a price discount to offload him.

Nothing much has changed
 

Slevs

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No impact.
99% of the time, its not going to be a 500k a week player who doesn't have positive impact on the pitch anymore.

If its a "regular" player on "regular" wages, dropped and out of the team, transfer finalized later on. Plus, its going to paint a negative image for him for the rest of his career.
 

justsomebloke

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How do people think Ronaldo's exit strategy will impact players trying to force their way out of contracts in the future? I think what this exposes is that once dirty laundry starts being aired on social media, clubs have more to lose than even the biggest players. Especially since such a move is far more likely to be instigated by the player.

We already saw a glimps of this in the Antony vs Ajax situation, where he did an interview with Romano in an attempt to force his way out. Nobody really talks about it on here because in that case, it worked out in our favour. More importantly, it worked out in the player's favour too.

Question is, could we see players who want out doing more of this? And if so, how do clubs protect against it? Do they just hold firm and ride it out or cave and give the player want he wants?
I guess the solution here is don't hang on to players who want to leave. Accept it, sell them, move on.
 

Champ

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I guess the solution here is don't hang on to players who want to leave. Accept it, sell them, move on.
Difficult to sell when there's no buyers.

Personally I think what's happened here is United wanted to sack Ronaldo for breach of contract or similar, and offered Ronaldo mutual termination to get it done quick and save any hassle to him and the club moving forward,
 

KeanoMagicHat

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Ronaldo was willing to give up £15-20 million of salary as he:

1) will get paid that elsewhere
2) is one of the richest players ever

It’s possible this could happen again but most people would not be willing to give up that sort of money to go free agent, particularly anyone early in their career without complete financial security.
 

justsomebloke

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Difficult to sell when there's no buyers.

Personally I think what's happened here is United wanted to sack Ronaldo for breach of contract or similar, and offered Ronaldo mutual termination to get it done quick and save any hassle to him and the club moving forward,
Yes, in this case. Possibly. We don't know what United told prospective buyers in terms of fee wanted. But in most cases it will not be like this.

And I agree United took the smart way out here, given where things stood. Could have saved themselves the gloss in the statement though, made it clear there's no parting with good feelings here.
 

Adisa

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Not often you have a soon to be 38yo player on 500k a week.
 

justsomebloke

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I wish our bench scrubs would do this. Then we might actually be able to shed them. The more likely truth is it won't have much impact. Players don't want out of the lucrative deals we give and they definitely don't want to be sacked with no compensation. The notion that Ronaldo "won" is an idiotic cope among his supporters. He hasn't even gotten a new club so we can't yet quantify how much he really shot himself. He's not legal savvy and likely didn't know it would lead to being let go without pay. I mean he was just crying about the 25% CL cut to his salary, he wasn't ready to give it all up. Mendes would have advised against if he took counsel.
One could entertain a theory he's been going at less than full throttle all season, and made a consciously inflammatory interview and timed it for when it wouldn't have any effect on his playing time, getting himself released just as he's walking onto the biggest stage there is in football, in a perfect position to present himself as a golden option for the clubs just about to go into the CL knockout stage. You could even entertain the thought that any serious suitors his agents have been in touch with might not be completely unaware of that game plan.

But it all depends what happens next, doesn't it. If he has a poor tournament, or gets injured, it might leave him completely stranded. If he goes on to have a great tournament, get signed by a big club and then light it up for them, it's not going to be a good look for a club that cut him loose for free.

Still, can't really fault the club, this was probably the right thing to do. You could maybe argue they should have done more to get him moved this summer window, and that they should have anticipated this kind of trouble if they didn't.
 

11101

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It won't change a thing.

We let him go because of his status both as a player and within the club history.

Anybody else tries it we would let them rot in the reserves until we could sell them. Possibly with a lawsuit to recoup the lost value along the way.
 

cyril C

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None what so ever.

A good benchmark is Henderson, who also cried foul on betrayal and lack of opportunity. At 100k/wk, he is still able to find a club willing to accept him on loan, but perhaps not outright purchase. At 500K/wk, perhaps only Middle East Clubs can afford him.

Pellistri is also screaming for betrayal, and should not have problem in finding a new club, should we let him go. At the end of the day, it is about the value, age, ability, WAGES, that matter.
 

tomaldinho1

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None whatsoever. I feel like his strategy was basically to divert attention from the fact he’s essentially had to force a move because he isn’t able to play in a modern system anymore. He is 38 this season and was on astronomical wages, we’ve been trying to sell him since summer and he had 6months left on his deal. Couple that with his first stint here and, frankly, how the club wants to stay associated with him in a positive way, and it’s a very unique situation.
 

FrankWhite

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Looks like the consensus here is that it'll have no impact, Interesting. I don't think clubs will terminate contracts if it happens again. However, it may lead to clubs accepting less transfer fees than they would have or selling when they'd rather not.
 

DWelbz19

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I don't think so. The key thing - no matter what many may think - is the money. Ronaldo is one of a very small handful of professional footballers who are that rich that they are capable of foregoing a years worth of salary to get out of a club.

The Antony comparison is something else, and probably something we will see more of - i.e. player power increasing, but I don't think we'll get close to anyone else actively doing a huge power play like Ronaldo where the only choice is to terminate a contract. If we didn't end up paying the price Ajax wanted, Antony would've stayed put this summer, played his football, and moved next season. Ronaldo's was a whole different ball game with a guy who has barely a year or two left of top level football in him, with nothing really to lose, so he went kamikaze mode.
 

Judge Red

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If Ronaldo wasn’t 37 and shit, this contract termination would not have happened. The club got a favourable outcome for itself. No one was ever going to buy him.

As for Antony, Ajax also got a favourable outcome in terms of what we paid.
 

moses

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I have no idea either, yet.
The thing that gets me is that not only will there be no impact, it was totally unnecessary and could have been sorted in 30 seconds over a cup of tea. Everyone got what they wanted?
 

DWelbz19

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The thing that gets me is that not only will there be no impact, it was totally unnecessary and could have been sorted in 30 seconds over a cup of tea. Everyone got what they wanted?
My view is that probably ten Hag and Ronaldo were in agreement - i.e. to piss Ronaldo off for a free right now - but I don't think the Glazers wanted their prized possession to leave earlier than he could have. Or if he was going to leave in January, it would be for an actual transfer fee. In that sense, Ronaldo's bombshell left them no choice but to feck him off asap.
 

Elcabron

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Don't agree with the zero impact line of thought. What if Garnacho for example wants to force his way out to Real Madrid in a few years? He now knows that giving a shitty interview could speed up the negotiations with Madrid and potentially lower the transfer fee.
 

romufc

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Don't agree with the zero impact line of thought. What if Garnacho for example wants to force his way out to Real Madrid in a few years? He now knows that giving a shitty interview could speed up the negotiations with Madrid and potentially lower the transfer fee.
There is a major difference tbf. Ronaldo is not Garnacho. Ronaldo is one of the GOAT's so him saying something is big. If Garnacho says something, United will just sue.

The other thing also was, EtH is a new manager and didn't want Ronaldo, his style didn't suit him, so him going is better off for the team.
 

stefan92

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Considering that there were reports in the summer that United was willing to sell Ronaldo in the summer and there was no serious interest in him, it just looks like the club saves half a year salary while Ronaldo gets nothing out of it. It hasn't become more likely that a CL club will sign him, which seems to be what he wanted, so I don't see how Ronaldo could look like a winner in the end.

He might agree to a financially great deal in Saudi Arabia or so, but he could have done so before and didn't, because he wanted to play CL. So that still wouldn't be a win for him.

So I don't think anything will change because of this, players have been forcing moves for years and if the selling club is smart it's still good business (Antony to United or Dembele to Barca cone to mind)
 

GazTheLegend

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Ronaldo didn't "win". Right now he is jobless, whereas if he'd just shut the feck up for 6 months he'd have had 16 million for doing nothing. Pogba "won" his situation. I'd honestly be more concerned about players behaving like Pogba. Infinitely patient and ambitious.
 

mctrials23

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Yeah, I am baffled at how people think Ronaldo has won this one. He is currently without a club, won't get paid what we were paying him unless he goes to a pony league, no big clubs wanted him in the summer and after this shit show I doubt they will be knocking down his door saying "we were wrong Ronny, we're sorry!". He is unlikely to be playing in the CL this season or probably again unless he goes to a shit club which will only be in the CL because they are in a weaker league i.e. will probably be out of the CL early.

United on the other hand have got rid of an extremely expensive player who was causing issues in the dressing room, distracting from the team and a constant threat to the club harmony. I would suggest United are the big winners in this situation.

If Ronnie doesn't have a cracking world cup the fans in Portugal will turn on him as well. They are a much better side without him as well and no doubt he will demand to be the centre of everything and play every minute or he will throw another strop.
 

bosnian_red

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It was a rare situation. We wanted to get rid of him, he wanted to leave, but nobody could afford the contract. It won't impact others unless they have enough money where they don't care about losing 17m for half a season.

Players who want to leave always have the option to burn their bridges and end their contracts early (or force a sale if it's a wanted player). Most don't burn bridges.