PLAYER contracts: worth the paper they’re written on? In the modern game they are there to serve a triple purpose — remunerate the player, provide him with an exit strategy (release clause) and to help the owning/selling club ‘protect’ the player’s value. The notion that a player renewing a contract with his club is somehow demonstrating loyalty is an arcane one.
Liverpool nigh on doubled Luis Suarez’s wages six months before selling him to Barcelona for £75million. Had the club not offered him the contract with a release clause option in January 2014 then they risked him sitting out the final 18 months of his previous agreement before leaving for any club he chose for zero pounds and zero pence. Arsenal could have had him for a quid after all.
The verdict at the time? Shame to risk losing the great player but ‘protecting’ £75m would surely soften any future blow. But did it, ultimately? What a club of Liverpool’s stature have to do when they sell big is to buy big. They wouldn’t dare not. To bank the windfall is to risk mutiny on the terraces and in the dressing room. Therefore the manager gets to see the £75m (more or less) converted back into the currency all really want to see — red shirts on a football pitch.
It all feels like a natural recycling process right up until the moment the new post-Suarez-now-with new-players incarnation of Liverpool FC steps on to a football field. Then reality dawns. The manager could have sought to buy one like-for-like replacement for a Suarez, but the breed of course doesn’t exist. Instead he buys three or four players with the money, predicated on a belief that either, aggregated, they will compensate for the loss of the star player, or that by buying in quantity the blunderbuss theory will apply and at least one of the new lads will hit the mark required .
It is no accident that both Liverpool and Tottenham experienced entirely comparable set-backs after selling star players and then re-investing. If a club has a £75m player who has delivered nine out of 10 levels of performance for the past three seasons, the odds are very good that he will continue to do so into a fourth season. When a player changes club, for a host of reasons, the odds of him repeating his previous level in his debut season are nowhere near as good. Any sane analyst would rather keep the known quantity worth £75m than change for the unknown quantity valued at the same amount.
The devil a club knows is unlikely to face new challenges after three years at a club of the kind that would impact on a new recruit — settling in to a new team pattern and approach to training; adapting to a new style in a new league; adapting to lifestyle and language; dealing with new workmates and a new boss; considering the impact of a change of scene on a family. Probability wise then, a club is up against it when changing the incumbent star with a new version, regardless of the respective market values.
Liverpool could have theoretically swapped Luis Suarez for a Gareth Bale last summer, but the odds would still have been against the new man having the same impact Liverpool could have relied upon from the pre-acclimatised Suarez. It’s eminently possible that Bale could have eclipsed Luis Suarez, as Dalglish did Keegan in 1977, but it’s not something that could have been counted on. Safe to say that Bob Paisley would have preferred to have retained the Kevin Keegan of 77 and stick with the certainty of performance level that he was producing then.
What if Liverpool hadn’t offered Suarez that value protecting release-clause in the new contract of January 2014? What if John Henry had simply said, ‘Luis, you’ve got a year and a half left on your contract and you’re staying until the very end’, as he had in effect seven months prior? Let’s park the issues this raises as regards a player’s attitude to being ‘forced’ to stay. How do the numbers play out? This is the main factor as the received wisdom is that clubs should offer new contracts to ‘protect value’.
If Suarez had remained at Anfield until the end of this season with no new agreement, Liverpool would not received a £75m transfer fee. They would have saved paying Suarez a wage increase worth about £7-8m. Net loss £67-68m? On paper. Trouble is, that £75m fee isn’t real currency, it’s simply a measure whereby a club like Liverpool FC converts one player into another set of players. So how real is the loss of the fat pay-off fee facilitated by ‘value protection’?
Liverpool sell Suarez and spend the £75m on attacking players: Lallana, Markovic, Lambert, Balotelli. What are those players worth to sell today? £35-40m? What has been the combined value of their contribution to the team this season? Two of them have barely played. None are nailed-on first 11 regulars. What value can we put on the level these type of players can provide vs the virtually assured value Suarez might have contributed ?
Ok, with a better headwind one of the replacements might have had a stellar season. But a Suarez level best-in-the-world-level season? Unlikely, how ever many times the scene is re-run. If Suarez had been made to see through his contract what plays out? Liverpool definitely get top four? Challenge for the title again? Get past the group stage in the Champions League? Sell more shirts across the globe? Get shown on TV more?
What’s all this worth in readies? What kind of an increased transfer budget would it have facilitated for Brendan Rodgers this summer?
The club wouldn’t have had £75m in the bank to have bought Lallana, Balotelli et al. But they would have had another decent Suarez-inspired season under the belt and the money from Champions League progress and qualification would have eclipsed the benefits of effectively trading Luis for a group of players far below his level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp9yvMvi0a8
Raheem Sterling has two-and-a-half years left on his current deal of approximately £30k a week. Let him sit it out. Save about £12m in wages doing so. Then offer him the fortune he should command by then. He may say ‘adios’ and leave on a free, but he also may just take it. After all, he will have been playing for a club that will have retained its best young talents and in doing so is likelier to be in a better place in two and a half years’ time. The Liverpool FC that retains Raheem Sterling is a more attractive proposition (on many levels) than the one that cashes in on him. Even to the player himself (if that makes sense).
Or. Cash in the £50m worth of chips now before re-entering the transfer market casino like the addicted gambler, only to emerge wishing we had stuck with what we had. Raheem is worth more to Liverpool FC over the next two years than the productivity that can be yielded from spunking another fortune (provided by his sell-on fee) in the transfer market. Offer him no wage increase beyond the reasonable, and make it without prospect of release clause. Let him take it, or reject it, but make it very clear that Liverpool contracts mean what they say. That a player will play for the club for the duration of its term.
The alternative, to re-engage with the cash-in-reinvest cycle is fraught with problems and has a low probability of success. It is clearly a false economic principle that sees the prime aim of a contract as value protection as Liverpool did with Suarez.
From the club’s perspective it should be all about committing the player to service, and that must be demonstrated by letting contracts run down rather than being cashed in on under a misguided presumption. The real win is in the extended contribution of the established performer. That’s the true value worth protecting.
Read: What’s the deal with contracts, Liverpool?
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But if the player wants to be elsewhere then the likelihood is they won’t play anywhere near to their potential. They will “stink up” the dressing room causing problems with other players.
Like it or not the players hold the trump cards.
What we really need is to compete on salary first and foremost. Take that factor out of the equation. Then the club needs success on the pitch. Players want silverware and big money.
The alternative is what we have now. Like it or not.
rob, I wrote a playful piece about Sterling where I basically said if he doesn’t want to sign then keep him on his contract until it runs out. Save the money but make sure he’s aware that he’s leaving £10,000,000 on the table by not signing.
It just makes too much sense for Liverpool, not to do exactly that, which is what you’re saying.
If he doesn’t perform in that time, so be it. He’s on a low wage anyway. But if he eventually wants to get a big pay day after Liverpool it will be contingent on him putting in massive performances anyway otherwise what big clubs going to want to buy him.
Also if he does perform and exceed our expectations that will invariably mean we are cracking into the CL and pushing for the title.
I think that has to be the way it goes from here on out. It just makes too much sense.
I wrote a piece about Coutinho and I said now that he’s signed up, there should be nothing at all that gets Liverpool to break that contract. He’s the best player in our squad and he should basically be locked up in that contract for the next five years. No sale for any amount of money should get liverpool to sell.
If we are going to go all buy prospects at some point you’re gonna wanna make sure those prospects deliver their very best while they are Liverpool and if that means we force players to stick it out and leave on a free. So be it.
Even if Sterling runs out his contract we’ll still get a fee because of his age. Not sure exactly what. Could it be as much as 40 or 50 million?
That’s an excellent article but I feel the obvious arguments undermine it slightly. I completely agree that Sterling should be made to stay but I’m uneasy about say, Suarez being made to stay. Can you do that? Well, yes but at what cost? Admittedly, when we refused him going to Arsenal we got the best out of him but I don’t think it would have worked for another year. It’s difficult to act on a player you feel isn’t giving his all because he’s aggrieved he wasn’t allowed to leave. That said, if we could have kept him we’d be in the CL already for next season and would have progressed further in it this season. The money gained from those two scenario’s wouldn’t have been much less than the fee we sold him for. Just not sure you can keep a player against his will these days.
In saying that, I don’t think Sterling will be allowed to leave this summer under any circumstance. FSG seem to want to rewrite the worth of a contract.
The other problem is, we simply can’t buy anywhere near like for like. Some of the comments from Liverpool fans are absurd at times – we should have got him or him. Yeah right, like he’d sign for Liverpool.
I watched the match last night and then had a look on Twitter. Everyone was saying ‘can you believe he used to play for us’. Truth is, I couldn’t. I miss him so much. It’s hard to picture him in a Liverpool shirt now. I heard Neil on 5Live once saying last season was just as much about Sturridge as Suarez. Sturridge amazed me last season. I was shocked how good he was as an all rounder but for me, last season was all about Suarez (I don’t care that that view annoys people – it annoys me equally that it’s become fashionable to underplay Suarez’s role). But, not to worry, we got Mario and Lambert so it all evens itself up.
So, I agree with everything in this article, just worried about the consequences of being tougher with players..
It’s an interesting article but it’s also a little naive to think the club has the power to manipulate the player.
As long as Sterling is on our books and fit, he plays because his value as a player far out weighs the fee he commands or the wages the club saves. It was the same with Alonso, Mascherano and Suarez. They were all more valuable to the club as a player then the revenue we received.
As soon as a player publicly states they want to leave – they have the power. If they are good enough. Sterling hasn’t done this yet. Sterling has said nothing to elude to this. But he’s treated as if he has. The fans are making his mind for him.
Sterlings biggest influence isn’t Rodgers or his agent. It was Steven Gerrard. Gerrard was probably the only person he looked up to (watch Rodgers reaction when ask about Gerrard’s 700th appearance – he’s physical can’t answer it and ignores the question. Bye Stevie. Too much respect at Anfield for Brendan to manage.) We saw this when Sterling first broke into the first team (he wasn’t nurtured and given the opportunity by Rodgers like many like to make out. The club had no option as Sterling as an 18 year old was in top 3 most talented at club. He knows that. I often wonder if the club does.) and we saw this for England. He’s seen how the club treats the player that stay loyal and give everything.
Hi mate. I’m intrigued by your comment – “We saw this when Sterling first broke into the first team (he wasn’t nurtured and given the opportunity by Rodgers like many like to make out)”.
I’m not in a position to know what goes on behind the scenes so I’d love to know in what way he wasn’t nurtured or given the opportunity by Rodgers. I only see the front of house stuff like playing 36 games in Rodgers first season, most as a starter and being only 17 for half the season. I’d appreciate if you give me more insight though. Cheers.
I don’t see how a manager can nurture a talented youngster in 6 months. Everyone was aware Raheem Sterling 12 months Rodger’s took over.
Injuries and lack of talent in the squad dictated Sterling’s debut. Or Rodger’s masterminded it. Spin it to suit.
Oh, I see now. Sorry mate, I thought you knew something we didn’t. What you meant was you don’t like Rodgers and spin everything to suit.
Ha. I do like Rodger’s but I don’t think he’s the ‘nurturing of young talent’ genius some people make out. Sterling would have been given opportunity regardless of who was manager.
Rodger’s makes mistakes – Team and formation v United was massive. And he talks way too much. On TAW on Monday they discussed fact Villa won’t know what to expect – yes they will because Rodger’s will explain every possible set-up to anyone who listens before Sunday. In great detail. I actually really enjoy listening to him discuss tactics though.
Good article, however it’s misguided in a number of unknown variables.
The analogy we have see here is based on the premise that Sterling is the finished article.
We know he’s not as was seen by his finishing against Newcastle which clearly shows that 1) Sterling is not a striker and should not be considered one 2) He’s technically not as gifted as Suarez.
The problem with Sterling is not him but his representatives and his associates.
Sometimes you have to cut your nose off to spite your face and in this case with Sterling you have to set a precedent or as an example to other young players at the club (think Ibe).
My preference would be for Club to sanction every other players pay increase, Henderson, Ibe, Flannagan etc.
This would isolate Sterling and psychologically tell him without saying it that if you had kept your mouth shut and not played Jedi Mind Tricks you would have got what you wanted.
This would have the effect of either upsetting more and pushing him out or he would realise that his tactics wont work .
The other players would realise that if they work hard keep quiet they’ll be rewarded.
Personally I blame the ‘Committee’ and primarily Ian Ayre as the money man.
he could have got the Sterling deal along with many others on the back of last season.
Instead they didn’t and now we see the results.
The problem still lies with having spent a few seasons away from the Champions League. If you want to attract the best players, you have to either be able to offer regular CL football or ridiculous wages, the latter FSG seem very reluctant to do. Agree that a like-for-like replacement for Suarez was never going to be possible and the result is that every player the club buys who is in that £15-25million bracket has to perform from the get-go. If Real Madrid or Barcelona wants a player however, they nearly always get them regardless of money or trophies.
This will be a real test for FSG. Do they want to keep expectations within the transfer and wage structure that already exist or, having seen the difficulty of qualifying for the CL, do they want to pursue a less fiscally prudent strategy?
You have to keep your best players to attract top players.
“Best midfield in the world” C’ya!
It’s somewhat of a vicious circle, granted and that’s the dilemma any side trying to break into the CL faces. Plus with FFP, the option of spending loads of cash isn’t really there any more. Even if Suarez had stayed, the need for adequate reinforcements to the squad would still be there and another top 4 place the following season would’ve been far from guaranteed.
love it Rob.
Sign the very fair contract offered, or sit on 35k for a couple of years.
Does his agent get a percentage of his wages?
Presumably the agent WANTS sterling to be sold for a big fee as he gets his cut- rather than go on a free in 2 years?
Worst case scenario for the agent is no pay rise and/or no big transfer.
It’s also naive to think any years left on contract means a damn thing. He could sign a 5-year deal tomorrow and still leave in the summer.
Pay Sterling the market rate for a top 10 European footballer or say goodbye to yet another world class player.
It’s a wonderful thought that we could play hard ball with the player and force the contract to termination but it just doesn’t work like that. Not only will the individual’s agent force a deal to be done the club will look bad to other players we want to attract.
Forget any ideas of trying to call the shots. Pay the going rate, buy in top players, develop our own top players in-house. It’s the only way forward.
It doesn’t work like that but could. I think that’s the point. If he’s contracted we can keep him. Simple. I doubt Rob will be offered a job by Goldman Sachs any time soon with views like that but he’s absolutely right in what he’s saying.
I’m with you though, pay the going rate to players who’ve proved (for us) that they deserve it. Do you think we could attract the top players or do you just mean the best of the rest? For example, could you name a top 10 striker who you think Liverpool could attract?
Interesting article.
I think the situation Rodgers/LFC faced with regard to Suarez and whether to sell at the end of last season was more complicated than a simple case of assessing whether the worth he would bring as a player outweighed the 75mill they could bring in from a sale. For starters, Suarez staying guaranteed nothing. We could keep him and finish 6th. Second, he couldn’t play until Oct 26th. I just checked and after Hull at home on the 25th we were 7th, 8pts behind Chelsea who had a game in hand. We’d already lost to Madrid and Basel in the CL. Maybe, pissed off at being made to stay against his will and rejoining a team who were, at the time, shite, he’d bite another fucker in his first game back and be banned for 20 matches? 75mill, on the other hand, is 75mill.
None of us knows at which point the club resigned itself to a sale, but it’s likely that any doubt about what to do was settled the second Suarez took a bite out of Chiellini. The baggage at that point was too great.
We came close last season and some have pointed to Gerrard’s slip, the Palace capitulation or Hendo’s sending off against City as the moment we lost the league. More generally, I think the problem was the lack of any squad depth. Once you got past the first 11, quality was thin on the ground. In short, our bench last season was crap. Rodgers mentioned this (using different words) more than once and I think he saw a guaranteed 75mill swelling coffers as a way to address that. He also knew there was a guy called Sanchez available for a mere 30-odd million who would do more than most to fill the Suarez-sized whole, leaving still plenty to cash to address squad depth.
All in all, I think the decision to let Suarez go was sound, even if it nearly killed me.
Whatever other problems we’ve had this season, I think out bench and squad are unquestionably stronger than last and whilst not all the new recruits have torn up trees, we now have 15 or 16 players whom I’m generally confident can do a job for us. Lovren, Markovic, Lallana and Moreno will all be better for having one season at LFC under their belts in 2015-16. Without selling Suarez, we’re probably looking at a semi-final on Sunday with Aspas and Moses as our potential game-changers from the bench.
Forget Palace, we were 3-0 up. What it comes down to is 1 game. Win or draw that and we win the league. Therefore you can’t say it was down to lack of squad depth. Obviously, we did lack depth but it’s daft to place yourself on 45 minutes against Chelsea (knowing that wins against Palace and Newcastle were to follow (if we’re sensible and accept we wouldn’t have squandered the lead had the outcome been different the week before)) and say – our squads not got enough depth to get a draw out the next 45 mins plus first half stoppage time. No way on earth was not winning the league down to lack of depth.
My feeling on Suarez was the business about the buyout clause wasn’t as clear cut as we thought, that previous summer. I’d guess a deal was done then. Stay one more year, we’ll give you a few mill extra and in that time you can get your father in law to sniff around Barca. At times, Suarez had the look of a man who wanted to win us the league as a farewell gift. I sensed that long before the end of the season.
I think that’s a classic case of attributing more significance to games at the end of the season (i.e. the Chelsea game) than any others, which based purely on the maths doesn’t make sense. It’s only 3pts for a win whether the game is played in August or May.
We needed an extra 3 points to win the league last year and it wouldn’t matter which game they came from. We lost 6 games last season – turn any one of them (not just the Chelsea result) into a victory and we’re champions. Or turn 2 of the 6 draws into wins and we’re champions. That’s twelve games – nearly a third of the season – in which we need to change 1, 2 or 3 results and we’re champions. In that context, the lack of squad depth starts to look more significant. Do better earlier in the season, and you can lose against Chelsea and still win the league.
I know it’s all ifs and buts, but if we had won the league last season we would surely have gone in history as the winners with the worst ever set of subs.
Well, that backs up exactly what I’m saying. Turn one game around whether in September or April and it we’d have won it. One Toure bad ball away, or one bad linesmans decision away. If we’d tailed off after Christmas I’d understand your point. It’s not a big deal but the fact is that team was good enough to win the league. Squad depth wasn’t an issue at all. It wasn’t a long season in terms of games and I’m tempted to say we proved we could win it. Except we didn’t, haha.
Agree about the subs though so all’s not lost. In fact, I’ve made a bit of a tit of myself to my mates. They were doing my head earlier in the season, blaming everything and everyone so I said we’ve got one of the best squads we’ve had in decades. That we regularly have over £100m sitting on the bench, which does sound impressive and has probably never happened before but they make me name the £100m’s worth now and I have to say Mario, Lovren, Lazar, Lallana, Borini and Johnson. I get laughter followed by snarling and my argument starts to look a bit stupid to be honest.
I don’t know. I agree we proved we could win it so to that extent you can argue squad was not a factor, but I always felt that if we didn’t have our first 11 on the park last season we struggled. Put it this way, last year’s team with this year’s bench I think wins the league in 13-14. One or two of the those 12 games we drew and lost would have different results, and we’d have our extra 3pts.
I don’t think your mates have too much to laugh about. Compared to what the top 4 can put on the bench, our lot do look inferior. What about Spurs’ bench? Everton’s? Southampton’s? In terms of players who could possibly make an attacking impact from the bench, is Mario, Lallana and Markovic really that bad? I just looked at Spurs bench for their last game. Their attacking options are Soldado, Lamela, costing more than 50mill and for my money offering less than our lot. And the Spurs duo have nearly two full seasons under their belts. At Southampton you’re looking at Ward-Prowse, Tadic, etc..
I think the issue for us is that even thought we’re not one of the big four in terms of squad and financial clout, our heritage means other fans still think of us as one of the supposed big hitters. So they see Mario, Lallana and Markovic and think “ha”, whereas in reality, for the 5th best team in the league, that’s not bad (and a definite upgrade on Aspas, Moses, Alberto, etc..
I suppose they’re laughing at the number of goals between them. Not been a great return and all have missed big chances. I’m starting to think Lallana has to do more regardless of the fee. Markovic is probably one of the most intriguing in the squad regarding what level he’ll reach in the next few seasons. I thought he was right to square that ball against Arsenal. It makes it a certain goal rather than 70% chance, ahem. Kind of hopeful for Lovren. Always a worry when someone looks like they should be playing for Real one minute and Rhyl the next. I’m not ruling him out yet. I’d like to keep Mario if we could have 4 strikers plus Origi but I think we need to buy 2 good strikers and it’s not gonna happen anyway so pointless considering it.
Play this team obvious team against United:
……………….Mignolet
…….Can……..Skrtel…….Sakho
………………….Lucas
Gerrard………………….Marcovic
……………….Henderson
…..Sturridge……………Coutinho
…………………Sterling
And we take something from that game. Same team against Arsenal and we’re probably top 4. All of the sudden we’re not discussing any of the above.
Yes, Surridge behind Sterling. Sturridge can’t play CF in this squad. It’s evident!
I think it would be naive to force Sterling to just sit his contract out – not because we can’t do it but because it would be strategically catastrophic which is why no clubs ever try. There isn’t an agent in Europe (or a player interested in maximising his career earnings) that would do a move to a club who was seen as freezing young players contracts at a low wage and then forcing them to spend their first third of their careers there whether they like it or not.
We’d struggle to ever get a deal done again.
The problem is that clubs used to put exorbitant (or perhaps ridiculously overvalued) release clause fees into players’ contracts to stop the contract being broken.
But now rich clubs just pay it speculatively, which drives the market price up which means that other players prices go up comparatively, which means that the release fee isn’t as useful.
Perhaps the release clause needs to be something more secure than market value or money, something that even rich clubs have trouble breaking, such as a comparable player swap.
ie: if you want our best player, you have to give us your best player.