Sunderland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours

Unlike almost any other industry, there are just two short windows of trade in existence in football, allowing clubs to buy and sell players in January and the summer period between June and the end of August, with an embargo effectively in place - and only very limited exceptions - for the rest of the year.

The transfer window has been the source of much debate in footballing circles since the game's global governing body, FIFA, made it compulsory in 2002.
And, while businesses in other industries continue to recruit and purchase new assets throughout the year, Steve - who has almost two decades of experience in the acquisition of players including ten years as Barclays' Director of Football, has explained the key anomalies that make the transfer window - and football clubs - truly extraordinary.

"When I used to work for Barclays, I had all sorts of weird and wonderful clients who didn't fit the normal mould and football clubs were firmly in that department. Not so much the large," he explains, "But that's strange because football's profile is massively larger than its actual size.

"One of the interesting facts is that every University in every city in the country is bigger than its football club. If you take Manchester United - the biggest football club in the UK and about the third largest in the world - it's dwarfed by Manchester University.

"It's substantially larger. It has a bigger payroll, but if you put Manchester University into a search engine, you get about a million hits. If you put Manchester United into a search engine, you get about a hundred million hits. That's the difference between football and normal business in that respect.
"It's also strange because of the nature of its principal asset, which is actually human beings. You could argue the same in universities if you keep the analogy going - their major assets are their academics.

"The difference in football is that we put those assets on the balance sheets. Universities, advertising agencies, music promoters - they don't put their assets on the balance sheets in the same way."

As Barclays Director of Football, Steve provided funding for more than half of the clubs in the Premier League, handling the unique process of transferring a player from club to club.

"If you use the analogy that the footballer is our machinery and the piece of kit that will make the difference, you pretty much know what you're buying and you know how it's going to work.

"In football, you buy this piece of kit but a human being is so complex. There are things you simply can't control or compensate for.

"You're dealing with a person. Even if someone is going to move from the North West to the North East - it could be a three hour drive across the country - it would be a major decision for most people in terms of uprooting your wife and family, new schools and all the rest of it, and nobody thinks of that area particularly. They're often young families as well.

"Typically, in normal businesses there is no security of contract," he comments, explaining why players can be bought and sold unlike other professionals. "A professor doesn't have a value to a University in its own right, for example. He has a value in terms of the research he can do and the students he might work with but you can't sell him to another University and make a profit, where in football, you can.

"Eventually, that's why the accounting treatment of football clubs changed so that these intangible assets went on the balance sheet. We ended up with a situation whereby, in terms of accounting for football clubs, we had to put the players on at the price we bought them and then you amortise - you write them off - over the life of the contract.

"The strange thing about that is, in reality, if you look at any balance sheet of any football club and see the value of the players, it's highly unlikely that will bear any resemblance to what the true value of the players are.
"We all know, some players' values increase dramatically if they do well and conversely, others go in the opposite direction if they don't. A great example of that is Jordan Henderson. Jordan was on our balance sheet at 'nil' because he was a home-grown player.

"He'd been with us since he was eight years old so we didn't pay for him in that respect. You could argue that our Academy isn't cheap to run and we had obviously developed him, but we sold him for a significant sum compared to that figure of nil.

"By the same token, I'm sure you'll find that if you take a player bought for £4m over a four-year contract, ostensibly they way it would work is that every year £1m of his value would be written down so three years into his contract, that player on the books would be worth £1m.

"But if he's done well for you, or really badly, that could be a lot different!"
Sunderland and their competitors in the Barclays Premier League now have until the end of August to acquire players for the forthcoming season, a factor which Steve believes has hugely influenced modern managers, their transfer policies and, subsequently, the financing of the game.

"There are plusses and minuses related to the transfer window," he adds. "I personally believe that because of the window and restricted nature, clubs tend to run with larger squads than they used to previously.

"Before, if you had a slimmer squad and encountered a problem, you could just go out and buy someone straight away. Now, you can't do that and that is a danger that clubs - with the exception of goalkeepers - can't buy a player if there's a problem.

"One of the real challenges of buying footballers is the fact it's so high profile.
"When you are doing these transactions, it's very often in the public domain and sometimes it's in the interests of one or more of the parties involved to let things slip in the press.

"Quite often, you do get things in the press which are there simply to create a market. Agents in particular will be looking to create some interest and it gets played out in the media far more. It seems to be an increasing trend.
"For me, I've been involved in the acquisition of players - firstly as a banker and now in the football club - for years but it really doesn't take any longer to do the transaction.

"Most of them just get in the media a lot earlier so I think there's a perception out there that it takes ages. The reality is, it doesn't take any longer than it used to do. It largely gets leaked because someone has a vested interest, even someone not involved in the transaction.

"There's a ferocious appetite for copy by the newspapers for an industry where businesses don't even register as the biggest in their respective cities.
"As businesses, they're relatively small. Sunderland Football Club isn't even in the top 50 businesses in the North East but in terms of column inches written about it, it's massive!"

Kingdom Bhoy wrote: »

These Craig Bellamy rumours won't go away. Fine player but too injury prone for me.

Paully D wrote: »

Steve Walton is going. Very surprising given we're in the middle of a transfer window, a time where Walton is most useful.

http://www.safc.com/news/20110706/safc-confirms-changes-to-board_2256213_2387723

Looks like Short is pulling the trigger and bringing his own people in now! Disappointed to lose Walton, always thought he was excellent, but I can understand why he'd be let go. I'm sure we'll bring in someone very good.

Paully D wrote: »

Aye, I heard that too. Would be a great signing for them and a nice move to a good club for Bolo. I think they'll cruise promotion next season under McClaren. Zenden can still do it in the Premier League in a 5 man midfield IMO.