Fosun’s original intention was to build a new out of town stadium/casino/hotel/conference centre and they could have paid for that without breaching any financial regulation while increasing a revenue stream significantly. That they have decided against that is likely a reason their timeline/ambition has changed.
I hear this a lot, but it isn’t really true is it. How much would that have cost? £200-300m at least. I’d assume rebuilding the SB and incorporating decent corporate stuff, whilst also increasing capacity would cost under £100m.
How many people want to stay at a hotel on the outskirts of Wolverhampton on non matchdays? How many people want to use a Casino on a non matchday (or a matchday for that matter) in the middle of nowhere? i54 (or wherever) isn’t Las Vegas strip. It would be far more profitable on the current site.
In the absence of one increasing revenue stream to help live within our means - a larger stadium - player trading comes to the fore…and Mendes. It doesnt matter whether Silva is worth £35 million, it was a necessary price to provide revenue to another club. Mir isn’t worth £17 million. Liverpool are paying for Jota on HP but we benefit from the full transfer fee immediately. How much did we pay for Jordan, definitely more than his worth. Transfer fees are all made up by others to circumnavigate financial rules if you know the right people.
We buy to sell and sell to buy. The club retains an element of control in that every player has got their price and they if a player or club wants a move to happen that price will be determined.
Its just a money merry-go-round. Beyond that it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny if you try to use transfer fees to evaluate a player’s worth.
Buy three young players, sell one a year for a profit. Revenue.
Yes the Silva deal was purely to give Porto and Mendes money and we’ve benefitted from his access to players previously. The problem is, we’re not really benefitting anymore. We’re not getting players for cheap and we’re not getting players we couldn’t have signed otherwise.
Brentford buy cheap sell high from good recruitment. To my knowledge there’s no dodgy intermediary taking a massive cut and facilitating it. They are paying what players are worth, making them better/giving them a platform and then selling them for what they are worth. It’s their success at identifying talent that is seeing them win.
Whereas we are locked into a system where we have to do “favours”, or so it seems, so are not in total control of our transfer dealings. We are on someone else’s merry go round and are just a pawn in the game. We need to run the game not be in someone else’s. Until we become less reliant on Mendes we never will.
Edit-
That's a more disappointing explanation than him being outright sacked to be honest
Yeah it backs up what I’ve put above. They want us to become a “RB” club, but we rely on an intermediary we pay a massive tax to rather than relying on an extensive successful scouting network. I’m not sure it’s as easy as a midtable PL to bed in young talent as it is in Austria or Germany as one of the richest clubs.
