[Albion] Should we consider signing high value players and give them a release clause?

[Braggfan]

Should be a case by case basis, but generally I think no. We're enough of a stepping-stone club as it is, this would just exaggerate it even more. Our model works, there is no need to change it.

I would also argue that signing someone who sees us as a stepping stone, could increase the potential to disrupt team unity. Its no secret that Trossard annoyed some of our senior players once he stopped trying in training. I would think that sort of scenario is much likely when a player only sees himself being here short term.

I think as you point out, the current model works. It works really well and everyone buys into it. So why change it?

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Fence for me.

Players dont really need one with us. We've shown multiple times that we will sell. I feel they're more suited to a team like palace who have shown a marked reluctance to sell.

On the other hand if it meant we could buy a superstar for 30m, get 2 years of high class production before selling for 60m then I think I'd be ok with that too.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I would also argue that signing someone who sees us as a stepping stone.

Hmm.

I think pretty much all the players we sign see us as a stepping stone

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

No thanks.

This is exactly why the club has and will continue to take the stance that is does over being seen as a great club to develop at. In negotiations to buy a player we will be very open with the plan. You give us 2/3 years and we won't stand in your way if sensible offers start coming in. We will be strong, but fair.

People can often be short sighted and see us as being "weak" in letting players go, but we simply wouldn't be in the market for these players in the first place if we had a reputation to agents as a difficult place to move their client on from. It's a fine balancing act but it seems like we've nailed it. We've received huge sums and certainly appear to have let most players move on to 'better' things in amicable ways. Same for Potter and the related staff.

The upside of this stance is that less and less agents will need to push for a release clause if they have more assurances that we won't be a 'problem' when bigger clubs come in. Ultimately the Release Clause is in solely to bring comfort to the player that they can and will "get out" when the time comes. That figure can be circulated by their agent with confidence and clubs can work on matching that figure early.

In a constantly inflating market place, the club (of course), don't want to enter into this as you could miss out on the bumper pay day if the clause is lower than going rate.

I'm happy to carry on as we are. A reluctance to have these clauses but being open with players/agents that we acknowledge we are probably not the players desired end point. Give us everything and we will be good to you when the time comes.

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Far too subjective, but yes, sometimes.

 

[drew]

Doesn't matter whether it's one player or ten - none of us know anything about what goes on in our negotiations. But the Kudus theory is a reasonable one (in that it makes and could be right) so it's fine for a discussion on a football chat site, isn't it? On the balance of probability, I don't think it's far off.

Not saying it shouldn't be discussed but it is still 'rumoured' to be the only case where a player has rejected us because of our stance on release clauses. That would suggest that, in the main, we are doing well. If we had had release clauses on Cucurella and Caicedo I'd guess we would have got far less for them. For that reason, I'm happy with the way the club conduct their busines.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

We can't only sign players who have the chance of giving us a 1000% profit in 3 years time. I think we need to be more flexible than this. If we buy a player for £30m but with the proviso we have the chance of losing him in 12 to 18 months for £40m. Isn't that still good business?

Of course, he might turn out to be crap, but that's the case irrespective of whether there is a release clause. Signings are risky.

In addition, there is a chance for flexibility here. These clauses aren't all uniform, so we could contract with the player, for example that the clause kicks in after 2 years for example. If that is what is needed to get a deal over the line why should we be squeamish about it

So we sell for £40m, but what if his market value would have been £100m+, losing out on £60m doesn't look like good business then.

Having no say if you accept an offer from another club, simply because they bid enough to trigger the release clause isn't necessarily in the clubs interest too, as we saw last summer, we lost both key central midfielders, one to a release clause and one where we put a massive valuation on them, thinking no-one would be stupid enough to pay it and unfortunately (for our central midfield at least) someone did and it was too much to turn down.

Having several players with release clauses could mean that the heart of the team gets ripped out during the transfer window, and we would been powerless to stop it from happening (if it applied to a lot of first teamers with that clause, say for example that the following all had that clause: Mitoma, Pedro, Van Hecke, Dunk, Estupinan, Lamptey, Gilmour, March, Adingra, etc and all have offers made on them which met their release clauses during a single transfer window) meaning we'd struggle to get a decent team together and continue to build on our previous success. Is it really worth that extra level of risk it would bring to our squad planning, etc....

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

So we sell for £40m, but what if his market value would have been £100m+, losing out on £60m doesn't look like good business then.

Having no say if you accept an offer from another club, simply because they bid enough to trigger the release clause isn't necessarily in the clubs interest too, as we saw last summer, we lost both key central midfielders, one to a release clause and one where we put a massive valuation on them, thinking no-one would be stupid enough to pay it and unfortunately (for our central midfield at least) someone did and it was too much to turn down.

Having several players with release clauses could mean that the heart of the team gets ripped out during the transfer window, with a lot of first teamers with that clause going and we would be powerless to stop it from happening, and we'd struggle to get a decent team together and continue to build on our previous success. Is it really worth that extra level of risk it would bring to our squad planning, etc....

But a £10m profit and couple of seasons of a top player is better than the alternative, which is never getting the player at all.

Nobody is arguing that we should give out release clauses in all situations. Nobody thinks it's sensible to give an 18 y/o from Ecuador one. But if we're in a situation, where we're in pole position with a potential big signing of an established player, but we lose him, because a rival comes in late with the offer of such a clause, I think we should match the offer if it's the difference between closing the deal or otherwise.

I've got no idea if we were ever going to get Kudus or not. But if we did lose him because of not matching the offer of this type of clause we should be looking at ourselves. It basically means not only will be not get the £10m (ish) profit we would have made, but the swing of us or a direct rival having a player of that quality has very likely meant they have overhauled us in the league

 

[Guy Fawkes]

But a £10m profit and couple of seasons of a top player is better than the alternative, which is never getting the player at all.

Nobody is arguing that we should give out release clauses in all situations. Nobody thinks it's sensible to give an 18 y/o from Ecuador one. But if we're in a situation, where we're in pole position with a potential big signing of an established player, but we lose him, because a rival comes in late with the offer of such a clause, I think we should match the offer if it's the difference between closing the deal or otherwise.

I've got no idea if we were ever going to get Kudus or not. But if we did lose him because of not matching the offer of this type of clause we should be looking at ourselves. It basically means not only will be not get the £10m (ish) profit we would have made, but the swing of us or a direct rival having a player of that quality has very likely meant they have overhauled us in the league

When we lost Bissouma, we got Caicedo.
When we lost Cucurella we got Estupinan.

If we miss out on a signing like Kudos because we wanted something we were unwilling or unable to give (like a release clause, but could be anything like wanting a cat to be able to kick or whatever they demand during negotiations) there will be alternatives that we will look to instead who could still get us that same £10m profit and maybe even more and there is no guarantee that if Kudos had been signed, he would have had the same success here or whether the alternative may turn out to have been a better player.

We also don't know what he specified that release clause was set at, it could be that we sign someone for £30m and they demand that clause be £30m in the next window and drops by £5m more with every subsequent transfer window that passes, which the club would see as something they simply couldn't agree to, and therefore prefer to run the risk of losing out on the player whilst negotiations continued whilst trying to find a deal acceptable to both sides

 

[Van Cleef]

The rumour mill ( I know!) is spewing out a few hints that Kudus is angling for a big move already, cookerella style. We might not have to wait long to see EXACTLY what his release clause is/was.

 

[drew]

But a £10m profit and couple of seasons of a top player is better than the alternative, which is never getting the player at all.

Nobody is arguing that we should give out release clauses in all situations. Nobody thinks it's sensible to give an 18 y/o from Ecuador one. But if we're in a situation, where we're in pole position with a potential big signing of an established player, but we lose him, because a rival comes in late with the offer of such a clause, I think we should match the offer if it's the difference between closing the deal or otherwise.

I've got no idea if we were ever going to get Kudus or not. But if we did lose him because of not matching the offer of this type of clause we should be looking at ourselves. It basically means not only will be not get the £10m (ish) profit we would have made, but the swing of us or a direct rival having a player of that quality has very likely meant they have overhauled us in the league

Didn't we spend over £30m on Pedro and over £20m on Baleba? Where appropriate, the club make a decision.