Since you ask so nicely, here‘s the question first time:
Take player X and player Y, identical in every respect except age. X is 25. Y is 30. Which one has the higher transfer value?
And here it is second time:
I repeat: All things being equal, who costs more in transfer fee: the older or the younger player?
Is that easy enough for you?
It’s very easy for me, thanks
All things considered, the better player / the more sure to produce the desired output for the length of the intended contract, is the more valued player at point of sale
. . . should the player be willing to be sold of course . .
and if they’re your player and they’re being valuable to you as an asset, why would you sell?
And if they’re not being valuable to you as an asset why would anyone else want to buy them . . if they agreed to be sold that is?
Thus if you have a player on a 5 year contract you keep them for 5 years if they perform well and sell them at a loss if they perform badly. The third option would be to agree a further contract but that is not calculated in the initial engagement because it’s hypothetical.
Selling clubs have a different perspective but they don’t buy players at the peak of their value, they buy them cheap and develop them to sell on for profit. That’s why they’re called selling clubs, they buy cheap and hope to sell for more and .. I must reiterate, they don’t buy players at the peak of their value because that’s a low margins high risk business.
We’re clearly not a selling club where our first team squad’s concerned eh?
Can you remember the last time we paid a club record price for a players services, then improved them / increased their value, then sold them on (with their agreement) within the duration of our original contract and at a profit?...
Well, it doesn’t happen does it?
So age doesn’t matter, except as a component of our clubs initial valuation, and sell-on value is nothing more than being silly.
Something that might help you get a grasp of this is the fact that we don’t actually ‘buy’ players.
Ok so we all say ‘buy’ and the word ‘buy’ is common parlance in the media but the truth that we all know is that we don’t buy players, they’re not slaves, we actually lease player’s services for a set period.
We only agree to pay for what we know we are are contractually about to receive.
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