On the subject of our academy and the way we deal with them: Firstly kids who come through the ranks we have invested a lot of time and effort in over a number of years. Players like Wilks are worth something so we sell and in his case we made £1.2m. Tyler Denton we allow to leave to help him in his career and because Lewie Coyle has built a reputation in the lower leagues we sort it for him to go back out on loan and then release him in January to sort his career out, which will be where he's been for 3 seasons. So basically if we pay nothing for a player we release them if they are not going to make it at the club. Players we pay money for we will always try and sell them if we decide they will not make it with us, so Halme we paid £200k and sold him for £900k and Barnsley have potential to make a fortune with him. Players we let go for an undisclosed fee is basically us covering our costs and making a margin. Hugo Diaz we paid nothing for so released him, if we had paid cash we would have insisted on cash, like Sam Dalby to Watford undisclosed. So its not true that we spend millions on kids and give them away. A good example of how we are shifting players like Anita: he has a value because he has a contract worth £700kpa, if he wants to go somewhere he needs to negotiate a deal with Leeds to buy himself out of his contract. What that number will be I can only guess but thats whats happening with Anita and the same for LDB. Ekuban we bought for £500k and sold for £1m, Ideguchi cost £500k and Gamba Osaka are going to pay around £750k. Sacko had to negotiate a deal to get out of his Leeds contract to allow him to sign for his new club. I would bet that we make an overall profit on all the wood we bought a couple of seasons ago. Grot is being kept as per instructions from Bielsa. Saiz cost £3m and we sold him for between £2.5m and £3.5m depending on who you listen to, but he should have gone for £6m. The accounts will give us a good idea when they get published, but I would bet that we have made an overall profit on our trading
Doc, most of what you have written makes sense, but I do want to explore one issue further. We have 2 young players, apparently released for noting, that appear to have landed very well and with some instant success - Dalby and Diaz. Both appeared to have good prospects at Leeds and some were shocked to see them go. Surely, we need to recognize value and maximize what we get when we decided to let players go?
Leeds United came into season 2018-19 with high expectations. A new (world-class) manager in Marcelo Bielsa, and some fairly noticeable transfers in; Patrick Bamford, Jack Harrison, Barry Douglas, Lewis Baker, Jamal Blackman, Izzy Brown. On the youth side Stevens, Edmondson, Davis, Dalby were all making waves. That was a fairly muted transfer window for some, but it very nearly paid off, without going into the whys and wherefores. The more striking process last summer was who was sold and who got loaned out. Ideguchi, Anita, De Bock, Ekuban, Sacko, Sarkic, Shaughnessy, O’Connor, Wiedwald, Denton, Pearce, Coyle, Bouy, O’Kane, Cibicki, Grot, Vieira. The cull was brutal. The squad was lean. The second transfer window in 2018-19 season though was more muted still. In January in came Mateusz Bogusz (at 17 years old one for the future) and 32-year-old Kiko Casilla on a free. What might have been with Dan James is another story altogether. Compare that to the January transfer windows of Sheffield United (Norwood, Howells, Madine, Hogan), & Aston Villa (Kalinic, Mings, Hause, Guilbert, Carroll), who beat us to the punch for promotion. They were far busier, Leeds, much like this summer (so far) were careful… again. The nett results in a team thin on the ground, making errors and losing to teams they would have destroyed early doors in August and September. So why weren’t we more active? This summer (and this January) the key reason for Leeds not spending tens of millions has been – Financial Fair Play (FFP). With sides not able to lose more than £39m over three seasons, Leeds have found themselves at the more measured end of the transfer market. We’ve pocketed a reported £10m for Clarke, £5.5m for Jansson, last summer it was £6m for Vieira. And 2015-18 we’ve lost around £12.2m in total – so well within our limits. But still making a loss – this despite turnover increasing to nearly £40m last year. And bear in mind this is a rolling three year period – Leeds have to assume that they wouldn’t make a profit this year either given their reliance on player sales to make a profit, it’s not as though we can simply say; “we’ve got £12m in the pot, let’s go and spend it all!” You can put much of this down to the fact that Championship isn’t nearly as profitable as it could be. Weak TV negotiating rights thanks to the structure of the EFL means bigger clubs in the Championship don’t necessarily make more money for example. The limits set around how much equity owners can invest also limit the spending power of a club. What you can control though are the sale values of your players, which players you sell and those of course you buy. So let’s rewind to the Summer of 2017. In came Wiedwald £500k, Saiz £3.6m, Sacko £1m, Cibicki £1.5m, De Bock £1.5m, Forshaw £4m, Grot £1.5m, Ekuban £1m, Ideguchi £600k, Klich £2m, (all reported fees) big wages for free agent Anita. Then came new improved contracts for Dallas, O Kane, Cooper, Ayling, Jansson, Vieira. Let’s not forget the fees paid for Sarkic, Halme, Diaz, Rey, Dalby, Edmondson. It was a period of expansion – that’s for certain. So how many of those players are still with us? Indeed how many from last year? From 2017-18, Klich, Edmondson and Forshaw from those with improved contracts, Dallas, Cooper, Ayling. And from last summer? Douglas, Bamford, Stevens, Edmondson, Davis, Stevens and Harrison. From January, of course, Casilla and Bogusz have made it to this season. For those, we signed you can estimate (not including loan fees & wages) just over £15m of transfer fees spent. We’ve recently let Saiz go for a £1m loss, the others are either being actively flogged, have been let go or sold on for either a loss or very small profit. It’s this wastefulness that almost in its entirety makes up for our loss now coincidentally. It’s tempered by having had to sell players like Clarke, Vieira and Bailey Peacock-Farrell is set to exit, who all represent 100% profit given they came from the academy, and Jansson who joined before Radrizzani’s ownership. In short, we do need to start asking about how effective our scouting and transfer activity has been (speaking objectively it’s been expensive) and at the wrong time. Radrizzani may well be sat on £30m he could spend but our profligacy before Bielsa’s appointment is preventing us from signing anyone else. Equally, you can bet your bottom dollar there’ll have been challenging conversations between Radrizzani and Orta over the real value of transfers. The above doesn’t represent a great hit rate. When you consider the ongoing financial commitments of players we can’t give away and the likelihood that we may never see any transfer fee for the likes of Ideguchi, Bouy and De Bock. It seems Orta’s strength probably lies in his investment in the youth set up with Edmondson, Bogusz, Stevens, Davis, Temenuzhkov, all signed by him looking likely to feature in the upcoming season, far more so than in the senior side where some of the signings have been dreadful, to put it bluntly. It seems that something has to change here before we can comfortably start spending, either because there is more confidence when Radrizzani reaches for his chequebook, or when the sins of two seasons ago, are far enough away to warrant us spending money. ‘You can’t get any bigger than Leeds’
Jonny, Dalby went to Watford for an undisclosed fee which means we made a profit on him. I thought he was a good prospect but we had Clarke, Edmondson, Stevens and Kun all vying for a starting spot. I believe he got homesick and wanted a move back to London? Diaz another top prospect was brought in for nothing so we allowed him to go on a free/released and the job he did last season he probably deserved a freebie. Why Bielsa allowed him to be cut ?
Ok, didn't realize we got a fee for Dalby and if he needed a move closer to home then so be it. Diaz is a mystery. Also wanted to be closer to home?
