The Inflation of Player Fees - Are we complicit or squeaky clean?

[bluealf]

I'm not sure why you think City are complicit in the inflation of transfer fees, to the best of my knowledge I didn't see us paying £30m for players in the 2000's like our scummy neighbours, who were still overpaying for all of their tat, well, up until scruffbag billionaire arrived and now he is lowballing prices but with no joy.

 

[Gray]

We want a player - up goes the price.

A club wants one of our players - we practically give them away.

So no we are not complicit, and our nearest and dearest were the originators.

 

[dickie davies]

We want a player - up goes the price.

A club wants one of our players - we practically give them away.

So no we are not complicit, and our nearest and dearest were the originators.

That hasn't happened for years
We're recieving £20M for academy players now

 

[BobbyBoy]

This. I don't think we've inflated the top end as much as others, and certainly not wages, but we've definitely done a job on what a quality squad player should cost. Nowadays, you're rarely getting someone less than £40-50 million. Nunez for £53 million and Pacqueta being quoted at £75 million, which is more than we paid for Mahrez, who was player of the year in a title-winning side. And I can't help but think us buying multiple £50 million defenders had an inflationary effect.

The one that surprised me most was going to £45 million for Phillips. Obviously it's easy to say in hindsight, but I remember the initial rumours were that he was available for £30 million, and at that price it was worth the gamble. Then suddenly it was that Leeds wanted £50 million.

That's exactly what Utd done for years, bought midtable teams best players. There is a premium for any club to sell their best player. That's not inflating the market, that is the market. The PSG purchase of Neymar is the most glaringly obvious instance of inflating the market. Barcelona don't pay the huge fees for Dembele and Coutinhio without that sale, Liverpool don't pay the fees they did for Van Dijk and Alisson without that sale, Southampton wouldn't have even considered asking for half that before the Neymar transaction.

Man City have caused massive wage inflation. Lampard was the highest paid player in the PL in 2008 on 140k per week. By 2010 City have Toure and Tevez on nearly twice that. The knock on affects of that have hit all our pockets in ticket prices and tv subscriptions.

 

[bluealf]

That hasn't happened for years
We're recieving £20M for academy players now

How much did we get for Laporte/Mahrez compared to some of the other players leaving for SA?

We still have Bernardo because teams won't cough up the the fee and that release clause is 50m, the guy is worth way more than that.

We will have to give Pillips the taxi fare to leave, the sale of Porro was poor business in the end.

Our youth sales though have been fantastic and Palmer and Lavio will have done it no harm in the future.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

I think City have behaved very responsibly in the transfer market and have refused to get involved in auctions. Even in the annus mirabilis of 2010 we didn't "overpay" for anyone, though there was the "City premium" where wages were concerned, but even there this was much exaggerated by the media. Rather later we all know what opinions were about the fee paid for KdB but we certainly have had the better of that discussion. Of other players we all know that Sanchez demanded wages we refused to consider and United coughed up. As for Maguire, my understanding is that City inquired about his availability, were told that Leicester would not consider a deal for less than £50 million and City's interest ended there. United clinched the deal fo £80 million! The situation was similar, I believe, with Fred. With Ronaldo the rags were spooked into ludicrous wages becuse they feared he might come to City. These all concern our "rivalry" with United but football is a global game and we have had nothing to do with the deals PSG and Barcelona, for example, have concluded (Coutinho, anyone?). It might be claimed that Jack Grealish cost an unreasonable fee, but did Darwin Nunes? And I don't think anyone could claim we overpaid for our tap in merchant! Or for Akanji! And were Phil Foden, Oscar Bobb and Rico Lewis overpriced? Have Chelsea overpaid for Cole Palmer?

 

[Damocles]

Football inflation due to transfer fees is bullshit. It has never happened, it is not true, it doesn't make sense, and its a mental crutch used by idiots who don't understand finance to explain events that they do not understand.

Fees go up because revenues go up. It's that simple. Transfer spending as a percentage of revenue has remained within a few percentage points since the 1980s. There's the odd crazy transfer that blows the bank or one off events but this doesn't effect market inflation because most football clubs aren't stupid enough to spend their way to bankruptcy.

It's one of these things like sportswashing that exists because people are told it exists and never bother to critically analyse it.

 

[Keeper!]

If you have the funds available then you pay the price.

We will have to spend huge sums to replace KDB.

Musiala, Wirtz, going to be 120-150m euros, and I have no doubt the selling clubs will get that money easily.

 

[mexico1970]

When teams are paying so much for the services of players agents this upward spiral is just going to continue until the bubble bursts, always puzzled me why players can't pay their own fees for their own agents.

 

[KS55]

When teams are paying so much for the services of players agents this upward spiral is just going to continue until the bubble bursts, always puzzled me why players can't pay their own fees for their own agents.

The agents fees, if paid by the club, enable the player to avoid paying the fee out of TAXED income. You can’t claim tax allowance for your accountants fees for eg.