Jordan Ibe speculation
A lot of stories emerging that Ibe will be sold during the summer.
Is it a 25% sell on fee we will receive on any profit that Liverpool may make on any future transfer sale ?
If for say Ibe is valued at 10 million, and a club prepared to pay that fee, have a player that Liverpool are also interested
in, for whom the value is also approx 10 million.
What stops both clubs manufacturing a fee of £1 million for each player going in opposite directions, to therefore reduce
any sell on fees they may have to pay ?
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Comments
Did we establish for sure that we can use any Ibe fee to pay off the Hayes debt? Rather than the much worse scenario that the money goes to him, but doesn't reduce the debt?
If so, fingers crossed he hangs about a bit, develops like mad, and then pulls a Sterling and goes for huge money!
ps to answer your question, nothing. Although swap deals are pretty rare, the papers love to speculate about them
I'm fairly sure the 'worse' scenario you describe wouldn't be allowed as it would be third party ownership.
There was a rumour that Liverpool want a Udinese player and were contemplating swapping Ibe for him. Udinese would then sell/loan Ibe to Watford. In that scenario I am not sure hown a sell on fee (if any) would be calculated.
Hopefully if Ibe is sold it will be a straight cash sale unless this all goes to Hayes.
The above "worse case scenario" has, to my knowledge, never been even speculated. It would indeed be third party ownership and we know we were not guilty of that!
I believe that any monies recieved via a sell on could/would be used to reduce the debt to Hayes as has been posted before.
It's an interesting original question regarding do clubs arrange player swaps to reduce transfer fees and so monies due on sell ons. Being a sceptic I'm tempted to say "Of course they do".
Third party ownership was legal until 2015 I believe.
That was when there was a FIFA-wide ban, but it was already not allowed in England.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_ownership_in_association_football
Didn't we offer clubs the opportunity to buyout the sell on clauses we had on our players?
Cant remember a significant swap deal for many a year. Have I forgotten one.
As far as I can remember the terms of Ibe exit were never publicised, so I suppose we don't know whether there were any add-ons etc or what exactly they were. Clearly there is potential here for Hayes debt to be eliminated with a fair chunk left over. Lets hope we don't sell any rights for a pittance the week before the deal!
Out of interest if we have a deal with Liverpool for say an extra £500k if he plays for England, does this survive any future transfer to say West Ham (ie if Liverpool sell to WH and then Ibe plays for England, do Liverpool then owe us £500k)?- I suppose it depends on the exact wording of the deal, but what is normal practise.
@DevC I'm not 100% certain, but I can't believe that it would cover that. I'd have thought any agreement along those lines we had with Liverpool would only cover the term in which he plays for Liverpool.
More generally on this one - I'm surprised if he is nearing exit. Klopp seemed to really like Ibe and he's logged 35 appearances this season. Hard to know what his value would be - potentially high though given he remains a young English talent (and if he's sold to another PL club...)
I would have thought his current value would be around £10m on the basis that Andros Townsend went for £12m recently.
The prospect of getting a couple of million or more out of the deal would be incredible.
Imagine if we could wipe out the debt in one go, or even better have a surplus!
As well as obviously taking that colossal bind away, we'd be better off for the 110k (?) a year we had to budget to Hayes. That'd be a couple of players wages
@mooneyman , Townsend did rack a few England appearances up though. And at one stage was seen as a real hot prospect, way beyond Ibe's level to date
I feel Ibe is at a cross roads right now. He could end up a decent championship player a la Matty Phillips, or a real world beater. Depends on where he goes and now much game time he gets.
@Malone "was" is your key word. Townsend didn't kick on and ended up getting very rare appearances for Spurs. Ibe is 4 years younger than Townsend and has already racked up 34 Premier appearances against Townsends 69. Ibe also has more England Under 21 appearances. I think Townsend was somewhat fortunate to get that many full caps.
Ibe I believe has as much potential as Townsend did at 20, so I still think there value would be similar. I suspect Ibe also has a better temperament.
That debts been an anchor around our necks I'm not counting chickens or getting ahead of myself but if we could clear it nothing could stop us and we would become a golden beacon of fan ownership in the mire that's swamped modern football.
@mooneyman , let's hope so. Although I hate Liverpool, I'd love Ibe to kick on and become a regular for them, winning England caps. Then "pull a Sterling", give it the whole "needs a better platform" BS, force a move, by which time he's a huge fee, and we get an even more insane fee!
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here!
Just hope the geniuses behind the Philips clause sale have learnt their lesson, as most likely we'll never have such a potentially valuable clause again
Not sure those geniuses are still pulling the strings.
They are probably now advising George Osbourne Micra!
He could do worse.
This "Phillips Clause" thing. Wasn't this the "sell-on" clause which applied to the transfer of Matt Phillips from Blackpool to QPR in August 2013?
My understanding was that we might have received a percentage of the transfer fee if the transfer had gone through. We now know that it did, in fact, happen - reportedly £5m. But in the earlier part of the summer, when we were desperate for funds, and were by no means certain that the transfer would actually take place, we had to make the decision whether, or not, to take a potentially smaller (but certain) sum - or speculate on the "jam tomorrow" scenario. No doubt if we hadn't needed the money offered we could have taken a punt on a greater return. Sadly we did not have this luxury and to criticize the people who took the decision at the time for, effectively, being unable to foresee the future seems unreasonable.
The early cash in was a sickener but hindsight is a wonderful thing and if we had not received the cash there may not have been a future anyway.
However
@ up of embarrassing proportions was the international call up clause. Doh
Woah, that I am afraid is massively letting Mr Woodward of the hook.
The sequence of events was laid out very clearly in the FA investigation report. We sold our rights back to Blackpool on 6/8/2013 for £200k. Had we have waited until Philips transfer on 23/8/2013, we would have received £1.5m. The money was used to pay off Hayes's loan under the terms of that loan. There was no short term benefit to WWFC cash flow in taking the cash. It was widely touted throughout that window that Phillips was likely to be sold. Had no fee have been agreed it would have gone to tribunal, as it would at the end of the season when his contract expired if not sold in that window. By selling we effectively valued a highly in demand player at £800k. frankly the decision to cash in appears to be inexplicable, with or without hindsight. Had we waited a couple of weeks longer, the longstanding debt to hayes would have been effectively eliminated.
For all the other good (and bad) things Mr Woodward did, and there were no doubt many, this decision, certainly with the benefit of hindsight but it would appear eminently foreseeably, was almost certainly the single worst decision with the severe consequences ever taken by the club.
However much goodwill we have towards Mr Woodward, if we are being honest while acknowledging his strengths, we shouldn't ignore his failings.
The international call up clause was chicken feed in comparison and besides it is highly unlikely that Blackpool would have agreed to as large a clause for a Scottish call-up as they did for an English call-up.
Loathed as I am to re-enter a debate flogged to death in 2013 I think it should be noted that Matt Phillips was injured (broken arm) in the 2013 summer transfer window so a move was by no means as certain as some might suggest.
The club also desperately needed the cash to fend off creditors. I can't remember if that creditor was Steve Hayes or if it was for someone else. The decision makers would always say that money kept the club going.
The international call up clause was a massive mistake. The clause would never give different values for different countries.
If you believe the story the club needed the money urgently the deal stands up. If you don't it doesn't. I'm not sure we'll ever really know for sure but hindsight is a wonderful thing isn't it.
(This was probably just a copy and paste from gasroom 1.0)
While I admire your determination to rewrite history, his injury was not serious - he made his QPR debut on 14 September and it was an arm injury not a leg injury so was unlikely to affect long term player performance. Moves are never certain until they happen but at the time a likely move was widely reported.
The Phillips sell-on as I recall all went to Hayes - there was no urgent requirement to pay Hayes early nor any benefit to paying other creditors.
No buying club is going to agree to an international callup clause for Scotland or the other home counties of the same value as one for England. The reasons for that are obvious. I presume that was missed as the lad was born in Bucks and perhaps nobody maybe even himself realised he was qualified for Scotland.
Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. it can be used to castigate parties making a sensible decision with the facts available at the time. However that doesn't excuse parties making an inexplicable decision with the facts available at the time. This case appears to be the latter.
for me at least, it has turned out to be the single worst financial decision in the history of the club and places a serious cloud over Woodward's regime, whatever other good and bad things were achieved. Imagine the outrage if Hayes had done the same thing.
I agree with Dev on both counts.
We clearly got done by Blackpool on the sell-on clause (and if they had no intention of selling Phillips, why would they have offered us this deal in the first place?). It was a genuinely bad decision which cost the club a vast amount of money.
The international call ups thing is a red herring. Playing for Scotland is qualitatively not the same as playing for England. Phillips would have been nowhere near the full England set-up at any point in his career if he hadn't decided to play for Scotland. If we sell Luke O'Nien we couldn't reasonably expect to have an international call up clause where we get paid the same if he plays for England or Singapore.
Mistakes are mistakes. We all make them.
Typical of Dev C to put that over and above the willful mismanagement of the football club under Berks and Hayes. That is what should never be forgiven. Not a wrong decision in good faith
Ha..."Beeks"....autocorrect (honest!)
I think we also need to remember that Woodward came in effectively as a temporary chairman in order to assist the club in what was the hardest financial period of its history...the man was brought in to deal with an almighty mess and I think actually deserves much more credit than offered
@Chris Why would Blackpool have offered us this deal in the first place?
Probably because they knew we were stuffed for money and therefore easy prey.
We were in a weak position and so they took the opportunity to stitch us up.
A genuinely bad decision only with the benefit of hindsight.
I suspect that the truth of the matter is something along the lines of a well meaning, inexperienced chairman (Woodward) being had over by the cynical opportunism of the ghastly (Oyston) regime at Blackpool - an old hand at such things.
We may well get the opportunity to extract a small degree of revenge on the pitch next season.
As I acknowledged above, brownie, Woodward did some good things (including I believe putting some of his own money up at one stage) and some less good things. What I am saying above by getting the biggest financial decision of all wrong, I am afraid that inevitably puts a huge black cloud over his reign.
No SINGLE decision Hayes or Beeks made cost the club £1.5m, however many good and bad individual decisions they made (that's a whole different discussion). Again a different discussion but I am sure they would argue that decisions they made, even if they turned out to be wrong, were not wilfully aimed to the clubs detriment.
We all make mistakes it is true, although few of us will make mistakes of £1.5m , certainly not in the context of a small business. I have no reason to believe that the decision was not made in good faith, but it was plainly disastrous one and on the publically available information an extremely ill-judged one even without the benefit of hindsight. In any organisation you have to get the big decisions right. Woodward's decision here by any standards must be judged a serious failing which continues to severely adversely affect the club to this day and a serious black mark on his regime. Given its seriousness, it is ridiculous to wave it off with a casual "ah well mistakes are mistakes."