I was making a completely different point.
If Frank thinks the measure of ambition is trying but failing to land key targets, we are more far gone than I feared.
Transfer Rumours transfer thread fact and fiction
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I was making a completely different point.
If Frank thinks the measure of ambition is trying but failing to land key targets, we are more far gone than I feared.
And that's why he should have gone for the diplomatic answer, because otherwise he's inviting this sort of comment upon himself
I mean he could have also pointed out that, contrary to what the Twitter fanbase think, we don't have infinite money so can't drop £64m on one player without having to think about it, but baby steps and all that...
Of course we need to think about it.
Incidentally, we can spend circa £100m net per year before player sales without batting an FFP eye. And that's before player sales.
The fee wasn't the reason we failed to land Semenyo, and I think that fact should be pretty obvious.
I mean it is obvious the fee was the reason we failed to land Semenyo
Now why that fee is the reason is a multifaceted thing, and that does start with how we have to move things around to get £64m to spend in one go while other clubs don't
Seriously, what is the most we've paid to activate a release clause? The £15m we paid for Dembele in 2012?
We don't need to move anything around to spend £64m, especially early on in a window.
Literally nothing.
PS and I spent quite a bit of time laying out the maths behind it a few years ago after details about the stadium loan covenants became clearer.
Yes we do, given that's almost 2/3 of the (alleged) January war chest in one go
Again, when was the last time we paid a player’s release clause?
...a question which happens to sum up the latest Fichajes slop linking us to El Hijo del Bryan Gil, aka Osasuna's Victor Munoz - and that’s before Los Ladrones and their buyback which activates in the summer...
You're right, I can't recall a time.
Maybe that's a problem we should try to fix.
Seems quite sensible if you want to sign a player and you can afford the release clause, to just pay the release clause.
Not the sort of thought that would have crossed Levy's brilliant mind.
Interesting choice of tone, considering it's 2026 and sections of our fanbase continue to have great difficulty understanding that a release clause is not the same thing as a transfer fee
Or that Levy isn't involved in any way with this transfer window...
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Doesn’t a release clause have to be paid in one go when as a transfer fee can be spread over 4/5 years?
Correct but we can comfortably afford to trigger a release clause in that region. Case in point being the fact that we triggered MGW's but then got dicked by legalities and Forest wafting loads of cash in his face for a new contract.
The fact we flat refused to pay what the Mansourites were demanding upfront for Savinho soon afterwards, which was also in that region, does put this into question
Also begs the question how much of Xavi's fee was up front, as the answer is probably in there somewhere. Ditto for Gallagher, for that matter
...in other news, this collective Mandela Effect of the transfer window closing last night among our online fanbase is weird
Didn't we spend a whole January window trying to get Sporting to reduce Porro's release clause only to end up paying it as the window was about to close
We definitely didn't pay Porro's release clause, as we signed him on loan that January before making the deal permanent in the summer
In that case the negotiations were more about working out a way to defang the 30% sell-on clause the Mansourites had, as paying the release clause would have seen them make £12m on the spot
It's similar to the deal we did with Betis for Lo Celso due to PSG having a sell-on clause...which gives me the sinking feeling that we are directly responsible for the buyback clause mania that has cropped up in the last 2-3 years
Would be weird because the transfer window closes tomorrow!
Vintage Levy
Haggle haggle haggle only to just pay what they wanted anyway. Genius though
Except that isn't what happened at all
Paying the release clause would have benefitted the Mansourites due to their 30% sell-on clause and put £12m in their pocket overnight, instead the deal we negotiated benefitted Sporting as much as us - while the Mansourites got something like £8m, but spread over four years
Problem is that us making similar deals for Lo Celso and Porro is the likely reason for the proliferation of buyback clauses across Europe's upper tier leagues in the last two or three years, for example we've been linked Nico Paz and Victor Munoz this season yet Los Ladrones have buyback clauses for both and that certainly sunk our chances of signing Paz last summer
But Spurs basically paid the same amount as they would have anyway when you add up the loan fee and transfer fee. I’m not arsed how it made Sporting more money or cost City money.
Spurs wasted basically that whole window chasing him when they could have had it wrapped it up early.