Eggman
Well-known member
We’ve looked at Kia Joorabchian and MSI on State of the Game long before West Ham United were ever muttered in the same breath as them but it was only with the London based sports marketing company’s involvement in West Ham’s “Deal of the Century” on transfer deadline day that they stepped out of the shadows in the UK and gave us all a glimpse of what the transfer market will be like in the future.
We’ve all wondered just how did the Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano transfer to West Ham come about and what were the real motives behind MSI allowing their players to move to a safe midtable Premiership club and not one of Europe’s big spending Champion’s League everpresents and after doing some further research we’ve found out their plan to completely revolutionize the way the football clubs and players’ registrations system is run in the coming years.
From what we’ve learned from a variety of close sources it seems like the immediate paranoia about a Chelsea stitch up isn’t quite correct. In the UK, we’ve have become used to thinking that Roman Abramovich is the only Russian billionaire spreading his wings (and roubles) around the world but that’s simply not the case. The two money men involved with MSI are Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who is currently exiled in Britain, and his friend and business partner, Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili.
These two are the real men of power behind MSI with Kia Joorabchian becoming the increasingly more public face as they begin to move more of their operations into the UK and Europe. MSI as a business believe that they have found a way to make a lot of money out of football without actually owning football clubs which they feel is a path to financial ruin at worst and limited returns at best. Their plan instead is to control the assets needed for top flight football and to make their high returns and profits on these.
They already own several stadiums and the surrounding land in South America but the main asset they are planning on cashing in on are players, starting with Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The deal taking them to West Ham is quite unlike any other deal in English football history and MSI hope it becomes a blueprit for their future business.
West Ham have paid a minimal fee (believed to be around £5m each) for the use of the two players. Despite West Ham claiming that it is a permanent deal, it seems like this is more wordplay than a traditional permanent transfer as we know it. The players certainly aren’t loaned by any club to West Ham (Corinthians had “bought” them using the same deal i.e. a little money for a glorified loan of the players not from a club but from MSI and will receive only a nominal amount in compensation) but neither are they owned by West Ham United.
The players then play for West Ham for however long MSI decide to keep them there, all the time letting them acclimatise themselves to the English way of life and the Premiership and putting themselves in the shop window ready for a move from one of the bigger fish, in this case Chelsea, Manchester United or Arsenal. When a move to a bigger club does happen then MSI, as the owners of the players, pocket the transfer fee and West Ham receive nothing. The value to the club is in the extended “loan” of the players from MSI without having to pay the necessary transfer fee upfront which in this case could amount to more than £50m for the two in today’s market.
It’s certainly revolutionary and if MSI are allowed to carry on in this way then there is nothing to stop other companies setting up, funded by very wealthy people, and doing the exact same thing. The transfer system will become under more pressure than at any time in history, including Bosman, and the traditional structure of players owned by clubs disappears.
Maybe this is taking it too far but there will be a great many clubs who see this “leased” player option as a far quicker and cheaper route to challenge the big clubs and will be more than happy to play the part of parking space for these players.
Having seen how MSI plan to carve up football and how they want to make their money without the ties of a football club I’m truly astounded at the ingenuity of it all. So simple but obviosuly so effective if all goes to plan. The only spanner in the works could come from FIFA although in this day and age of mega money I can’t see FIFA standing in the way of big business and it really doesn’t get much bigger than this. Will it lead to the end of football as we know it or will the clubs band together to see off this threat to their traditional way of running their business?”
We’ve all wondered just how did the Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano transfer to West Ham come about and what were the real motives behind MSI allowing their players to move to a safe midtable Premiership club and not one of Europe’s big spending Champion’s League everpresents and after doing some further research we’ve found out their plan to completely revolutionize the way the football clubs and players’ registrations system is run in the coming years.
From what we’ve learned from a variety of close sources it seems like the immediate paranoia about a Chelsea stitch up isn’t quite correct. In the UK, we’ve have become used to thinking that Roman Abramovich is the only Russian billionaire spreading his wings (and roubles) around the world but that’s simply not the case. The two money men involved with MSI are Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who is currently exiled in Britain, and his friend and business partner, Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili.
These two are the real men of power behind MSI with Kia Joorabchian becoming the increasingly more public face as they begin to move more of their operations into the UK and Europe. MSI as a business believe that they have found a way to make a lot of money out of football without actually owning football clubs which they feel is a path to financial ruin at worst and limited returns at best. Their plan instead is to control the assets needed for top flight football and to make their high returns and profits on these.
They already own several stadiums and the surrounding land in South America but the main asset they are planning on cashing in on are players, starting with Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. The deal taking them to West Ham is quite unlike any other deal in English football history and MSI hope it becomes a blueprit for their future business.
West Ham have paid a minimal fee (believed to be around £5m each) for the use of the two players. Despite West Ham claiming that it is a permanent deal, it seems like this is more wordplay than a traditional permanent transfer as we know it. The players certainly aren’t loaned by any club to West Ham (Corinthians had “bought” them using the same deal i.e. a little money for a glorified loan of the players not from a club but from MSI and will receive only a nominal amount in compensation) but neither are they owned by West Ham United.
The players then play for West Ham for however long MSI decide to keep them there, all the time letting them acclimatise themselves to the English way of life and the Premiership and putting themselves in the shop window ready for a move from one of the bigger fish, in this case Chelsea, Manchester United or Arsenal. When a move to a bigger club does happen then MSI, as the owners of the players, pocket the transfer fee and West Ham receive nothing. The value to the club is in the extended “loan” of the players from MSI without having to pay the necessary transfer fee upfront which in this case could amount to more than £50m for the two in today’s market.
It’s certainly revolutionary and if MSI are allowed to carry on in this way then there is nothing to stop other companies setting up, funded by very wealthy people, and doing the exact same thing. The transfer system will become under more pressure than at any time in history, including Bosman, and the traditional structure of players owned by clubs disappears.
Maybe this is taking it too far but there will be a great many clubs who see this “leased” player option as a far quicker and cheaper route to challenge the big clubs and will be more than happy to play the part of parking space for these players.
Having seen how MSI plan to carve up football and how they want to make their money without the ties of a football club I’m truly astounded at the ingenuity of it all. So simple but obviosuly so effective if all goes to plan. The only spanner in the works could come from FIFA although in this day and age of mega money I can’t see FIFA standing in the way of big business and it really doesn’t get much bigger than this. Will it lead to the end of football as we know it or will the clubs band together to see off this threat to their traditional way of running their business?”
