Man City (Inadvertently) saves French club

Damocles

Administrator
Joined
14 Jan 2009
Messages
39,385
http://sportwitness.co.uk/man-citys-january-transfer-saved-small-club-shutting-thanks-e650k-cheque/

Aymeric Laporte’s transfer from Athletic Club Bilbao to Manchester City was one of the big talking points of the January transfer window, especially after Pep Guardiola’s comments that the club were on a ‘budget’.


Triggering the French defender’s £65m release clause, the Premier League side got one of the more promising centre-backs in Europe, even if there’s still a lot of work to be done on his part to fulfil it.

While Athletic Bilbao benefitted greatly, and managed to bring in Iñigo Martinez from Real Sociedad to replace Laporte, Manchester City unknowingly also gave a small club a lifeline by completing the deal: Sporting Union Agen.

SUA, as they’re more commonly called, are a fifth-tier club in France in financial difficulty, but, as FIFA regulation states, they are allowed a 1% commission fee for being the club were the player started his career and played for until he was 15.

That means that, out of the blue, a cheque of €650k landed on their desk, and that means a lot.

As Jean-Claude Brunel, the club’s co-president, explained to 20 Minutes: “In the space of a week, we’ve gone from a club who was on the verge of shutting down to a club whose financial future is sorted for the next ten years or so”.

What will they do with that money? They’ve got a few ideas, including paying for their coaches’ licenses, opening one or two women’s teams, buy a new team bus and hopefully build a team that will allow them to go back up to the fourth-tier in the next 4-5 years.

Realistic, to say the least.

Yet more ruining of football I'm afraid.
 
Expect the talking point to be... Why are we helping them foreigners when there are clubs in crisis here
 
Although I do love this club, in this instance we actually had nothing to do with it. For a change it's FIFA who should get the credit

But the point is that the money filters down and benefits clubs at lower tiers.

We certainly don't care about a 5th tier French club, but they benefit from our ability to spend.

It's the opposite of ruining football.
 
You could say it's UEFA not doing enough like this and football agents skimming as much of the money as they can get their hands on that's ruining football. Also clubs just being plain greedy with their asking prices when they know a player wants to leave.
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.