Bad times ahead..

Wasnt having a go at you mate more so having a go at how accurate Amy Lewis was in what she was claiming.

 

I dont wum often and if I do I try to at least have a sense of humour about it.

 

Well I didn't mean any offence Gonzo by asking if you were the one from Aberdare I just remember thinking that he seemd to be a sound enough bloke so it wasn't meant to be an insult.

Do you know who I'm talking about ? It's gonna drive me bonkers now thinking about it

 

Aberdude?

 

A very good summary of the situation mate. I'm still hoping; I don't see how they can fall out when they had come to an agreement. I'm hoping that they've had at worst a disagreement over a particular player or something and the media are making more of it; because they always seem to have it in for us when it comes to anything to do with the manager or transfers...

EDIT - Also, this thing about them not being on speaking terms...the ONLY place I have seen that rumour originate from is a completely undetailed Planetswans post claiming to have insider information. That's about as reliable as a random bloke in the street in Swansea...

 

My blue cap will leave it's impression, going to have a flutter in the casino Monte Carlo!....










Ivor you can pontificate for either side of the fence on this issue, but our board have form for this sort of thing, and their previous track record leads me to conclude that Laudrup is history, sorry but I don't see any other outcome!.......

 

Board meeting Bayram Tutumlu....

..... because Michael Laudrup is on 'holiday' but, he is actually with Erik Larsen, somewhere in Europe, to meet players scouted by EL. ML is the only prem manager who does this.

José Cañas Ruiz-Herrera.....

......signed a pre contract agreement. These agreements are not legally binding and have no legal standing what-so-ever. Cañas is a Betis player until 30/6/13, after that ??????

Pre contracts are designed to hash out the technicalities of a prospective transfer in order to to 'speed up things up' when the time comes'. In essence though, all they actually are is an agreement of 'first refusal', between player and a prospective new club.

Our Board......

....... has met Bayram Tutumlu partly to discuss new developments surrounding the transfer of José Cañas Ruiz-Herrera. U1st Sports, the players representatives, have, allegedly, asked for a £2M sweetener, from Swansea, above any previously discussed and provisionally accepted fees defined in the PCA. At this point in time the board has told them to get f*cked.

Deal still probable, nothing is definite but ML really wants him, there's the crux of the matter.

 

Interesting Stumpy ..... makes sense, but where does all this come from.

 

Hello.....not posted here before but ghost in and out.
I have a simple accounting question.....where do you guys think the money is going to come from for mega-transfers? 20% fan-owned and the rest a group of local individuals as far as I understand.....so the only cash available is via retained profits. 15 million for the first six months of last year gives a pretty good suggestion that there will be future profits, although there are some exceptional items that boost the recent figure. Unless there is a big kitty, there will be quite some risk with buying costly players when there is little collateral for such as a bank loan. Does this explain the difference between your Board's view of 'money being available' and ML's expectations?
Of course, you have to speculate to accumulate but who will speculate based upon future profits and players as collateral for their fees?
I emphasise this is not a WUM and I would hope for answers to the query and not abuse.

 

It's about future cash flows. These can be predicted with reasonable confidence - gate receipts, media license fees, etc. The one variable with low confidence is merchandise sales and that's because nobody at the Liberty seems to know how to procure and manage inventory.

There are two options. Either, invest in upgrading the talent and we still have a lot of legacy talent from lower levels that is approaching the end of its useful life - remain competitive, secure future cash flows in the EPL. Or, invest at an inadequate level, fail to compete, fall out of the EPL. The choice is clear. The first choice can be managed with fairly clear view of cash flow. The latter is teetering on disaster as recent history for Leeds, Charlton, Wolves etc demonstrate that when you drop, you can drop hard.

What we don't want to do is become a QPR and spend stupid money on unmotivated, "talentless" individuals, with agents smarter than we are. I don't think ML and his team are going to acquire crap - if we don't believe that then we need get out of the football business because we will have no faith in anybody. It is up to management to properly structure and manage cash flows to finance the investments without resource to additional cash inputs from investors or leverage. The cash flows are predictable providing we stay at the current level - the huge risk is dropping out of this level. Everything I have heard leads me to believe that we can finance these player investments with cash on hand and support the additional payroll with future cash flows. This is going to have to happen every close season so we had better get practiced at the habit - or we develop like crazy from our youth programs and pray that a new Ben Davies appears every season or two.

 

That's very comprehensive Yankee, but all I want to hear is that Jenkins and Laudrup have repaired their rift!...............

 

Correct DPJ, this is the key - if there is a rift then for the bests interest of the club they need to resolve it now and not **** up again. And if there is a HJ negative to this then the Board, and I am hoping the Trust's Board member is assertive in this, gets things recalibrated.

 

Frankfurter,what exactly do you think constitutes a "mega transfer"? £10,000,000.00;£15,000,00.00;£20,000,000.00,or some other enhanced figure.

Swansea City are only now getting used to paying £5,000,000.00 for a player,so the figures listed above are way outside of our thought process.

Sigurdsson was allegedly going to cost £8,000,000.00,but I never for one minute thought we would pay that for him.

Danny Graham cost £3,500,000 just about two years ago,and many gasped at that. Inflation in transfer fees has pushed him into the £5,000,000.00 bracket.

I suspect it will be some time before Swansea City get into the £7,000,000.00 plus sphere.

As far as mega transfer fees are concerned,well,that's for the likes of Man. City,Chelsea,and a few others.

You have seemingly posted in a non controversial manner,so why anticipate "abuse?

 

Hey Guys..... I dont normally post. I just lurk at all the ramblings from time to time.

Im going to play devils advocate here and look at a different scenario that may be playing a part in all of this.

Laudrup has already said he is off after this season. Doesnt that pose a question for the board and Jenkins to consider. What if Laudrup is given a nice pot of money to spend on players he can entice here, then after a season, they all want to jump ship because he is leaving.

Now I know contracts would be signed. But anyone knows that if a player has his sights on another placement and isnt particularly happy anymore, there is no point forcing him to stay.

Like I said.....I am just trying to think of what is ruffling the boards feathers (if something is), and whether they are looking at it from the point of view where they could make money available knowing that ML will be leaving and the possibility of losing players that they have spent good moola on..........

I dont condone, or like what is happening........ But there are probably reasons behind the scenes.

Until next time... ........ Adios!!

 

I echo Yankee's request, Stumpy. Is there any substance to this or just your own take? If the crux of the matter is in fact a £2 million pay off to a player coming in on a free, that is chicken feed compared to what some players get. To most players, the whole point of a "free" is that they do get to negotiate a better deal (involving sweeteners) as the buying club have saved on a transfer fee. It's why many of them deliberately run down their contracts even though they want to leave.

I hope Jenkins and the Board aren't being naive here. They might not like it but we all know it goes on and is part and parcel of the game today. If this is all that is causing the present rumpus, I feel very inclined to pop down the Liberty, shake Jenkins & Co warmly by the throat and invite them to join the real world.

But, with the greatest respect, Stumpy, I suspect that the issues run far deeper than a measly 2 million quid. Surely we couldn't be that stupid.

 

Jenkins should have been aware of all this when he got Michael Laudrup to sign a contract extension. Why bother unless his main intention was to write the £10 million compensation clause into the deal. He won't get it anyway if Laudrup walks because promised transfer funds aren't forthcoming,

In fact, (I'm guessing here because I don't know the exact details of the contract) Jenkins (the club) might be liable for a breach of contract. There is also the possibility that we could be sued for constructive dismissal, which could cost us millions. Our manager certainly has the financial clout to pursue such an action, backed by his immense stature in the game. We should be treading very carefully here.

 

No such thing as a "free transfer", You either pay the selling Club for the player,or he gets a signing on fee where no transfer fee is involved.

Impossible to know with any certainty which is the cheaper option,but any player worth his salt would know his worth when discussing a signing of fee.

Worse case scenario is that you pay both transfer,and signing on fees.

 

Great post mate

 

Where has it been written that he's leaving after this season. I thought his contract covered the next two seasons 2013/14 and 2014/15. And in any case, so the players leave .... that implies transfer fees in bound does it not, so I don't see how we lose much other than depreciated value if the player fails to perform or ages - which is a fact of the business regardless of whether ML stays or goes.

 

Posted this a few days ago....

"Ivor, Trundle and Dai,

I might be simplifying this too much but this is the way I see it

- Last summer we finished in the black (or thereabouts)....saving £10-15million
- During this season we made £5million on Danny Graham
- When we got promoted this summer's transfer budget must have been projected to be at least £15 million

Meaning we should have £30-35 million in this summer's transfer pot.
I just can't see the board not backing Laudrup with at least this kind of figure with Europa next year.
If we don't spend this kind of money it will be the worst decision (and perhaps the only bad decision) since the day Petty was bought out and the present regime took over.

Throw into the mix the £10-12 million from possibly selling Ash...and then bringing in, say 6, top quality signings and a season long loan or 2 looks easily achievable.
The only possible issue I see is if landing some of the class that Laudrup is after means smashing our wage structure......meaning eating into the transfer pot and possibly future transfer pots....and risking unrest amongst the ranks if things go wrong.

Overall you have to take a risk every now and then and the odds seem to be in our favour so I'm optimistic.


Another way to look at the refurb

Striker - The Graham money means that we only need to spend £3-5 million on getting a top quality front line striker
Midfield dog - Agustien leaves on a free and is replaced by Canas on a free. Increase in the wage budget no doubt, and a signing on fee, but an improvement for as small amount of money as we could hope to get away with.
Centre-half - We needed 1 extra. We sell Ash for £10-12 million and buy 2 centre-backs with the money (1 experienced, 1 whose top class but with further potential).

By my reckoning he has improved the spine of the team with an outlay of roughly £5-7million

We only then need a creative/goal scoring midfielder, an extra striker and possibly a winger/inside forward.
3 players. If things are tight the loan market could take care of one of these positions.
It doesn't look like he needs to spend much more than £20-25million in total on building next year's squad. A squad that would be deep enough to field 2 different first XI's who could compete in the Premiership."


I'd included £2million for Canas' signing on fee. If a punter like me could see that his representatives would be looking for a hefty signing on fee I'm sure Jenkins and co. could foresee that one. At least you'd hope so.
Obviously we'll be looking to negotiate him down but as other teams have made him offers with higher wages we don't have much of a bargaining position.

However, if Tutumlu stands to make any money out of this deal also I could see a conflict of interest which would make us uncomfortable.