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The Russell catch-all transfer thread
Topic Started: Apr 20 2013, 01:07 PM (22,048 Views)
Naebody
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Twat
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Sometimes, I find this board dispiriting. Then I remember it's probably a reasonable reflection of the conversations had at all levels of professional football, and I find that dispiriting instead.

Can I try (yet another) different tack? Forget this is football for a moment. Put it in the context of your own employment, whatever that might be. Pushing buttons, selling shit, digging holes, whatever.

Your employer wants you to go on the senior management training programme. You'll get your current salary. The course lasts a minimum of three years and you'll be reviewed every six months for promotion out of the scheme and into the boardroom.

On starting the course, your employer offers you an interest-free loan equivalent to 50% of your salary. The loan needs to repayed in the final year of the training course.

Outcome one: you ace the course, get a promotion within the first two years and move into management. You benefit because you have earned 2.5 years of wages in two years as well as a promotion. Your employer has benefited by identifying and training a senior manager for just 25% more than they're paying you to sell shit or push buttons at the moment.

Outcome two: you're mediocre but are showing some promise. Some time within the first two years your employer decides offer an extension of your training scheme contract, in the expectation that you will eventually make the cut. You benefit by kicking the loan repayment forward by a few years. Your employer benefits from not losing a promising employee in which it's already invested.

Outcome three: you prove yourself to be crap. Your employer says at the end of year two that you're probably going to fail the training course and you have to pay back the 50% of your wages you borrowed two years before. You may wish to slack off in your final year but that is unlikely to help your chance of proving your employer wrong, or improving your job prospects with any other employer.

Now, ignoring football and based on your circumstances, tell me why you would not want to take the above offer. Or, if you would take it, tell me how you would exploit it to benefit you instead of (rather than as well as) your employer.

We'll find these unintended consequences somehow, damnit.



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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Naebody
Apr 26 2013, 09:26 AM
Sometimes, I find this board dispiriting. Then I remember it's probably a reasonable reflection of the conversations had at all levels of professional football, and I find that dispiriting instead.
Problem is, Naebs, there are people reading your posts right now thinking "I find his posts dispiriting - but representative of [insert particular organisational pet hate] - which I find even more dispiriting in my unfulfilled and doomed to failure life".

People disagree and have different ideas of "good" or "better" all the time. That's why there are so many nebulous management consultant jobs out there.

ETA: I am grossly underpaid and would welcome an approach with said nebulous management consultants
Edited by whatsthatonyourback, Apr 26 2013, 11:48 AM.
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Cobardon
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Uncle Smurf
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If you find this board dispiriting, Naebs, I strongly suggest not looking at other football discussion boards or comments sections online. This is -by a great margin- the most coherent, educated and adult out there.
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Cobardon
Apr 26 2013, 11:46 AM
If you find this board dispiriting, Naebs, I strongly suggest not looking at other football discussion boards or comments sections online. This is -by a great margin- the most coherent, educated and adult out there.
Shut it, tit-breath.
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Naebody
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Cobardon
Apr 26 2013, 11:46 AM
If you find this board dispiriting, Naebs, I strongly suggest not looking at other football discussion boards or comments sections online. This is -by a great margin- the most coherent, educated and adult out there.
Precisely.

Quote:
 
People disagree and have different ideas of "good" or "better" all the time. That's why there are so many nebulous management consultant jobs out there.


Though even the most nebulous of management consultants won't reject an idea out of hand with a a single Powerpoint slide that says: "it'll never work because tits and dragons." That's what I find tiring.
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Naebody
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(Echo: it seems the phrase "tits and dragons" put me offside of the corporate firewall, which is odd given "cunting motherfucker" doesn't.
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Two minds (or is it three?) but with a single thought: tits.
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Conan the Destroyer
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Cobardon
Apr 26 2013, 11:46 AM
If you find this board dispiriting, Naebs, I strongly suggest not looking at other football discussion boards or comments sections online. This is -by a great margin- the most coherent, educated and adult out there.
Adult or A-dult? Cos I'm looking for a-dult really.
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Skeletor
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whatsthatonyourback
Apr 26 2013, 07:54 AM
Skeletor
Apr 25 2013, 10:14 PM
Also, Dundee United's "front-loaded contracts" would still pale in comparison to flat rate wages on offer from most buyers of our finer products, meaning they'd still be likely to tell us "It's not you, it's me" and move on to a big titted English blonde. Or if they're the type who's inclined to show a bit of 'integrity' they'll agree to hold our hand for another year regardless of "front-loading". It's a poor idea overall.
I'm not saying anything is going to stop Man U, or even Blackburn, offering a young player of ours the sort of money that is utterly unmatchable and un-refusable.
Which is why I'm saying it's pretty pointless. We could spend a years paying a player over the odds on a front-loaded contract which we'll have to renew before the final balancing year, and they may turn out to be a very expensive gamble that didn't pay off with a transfer. Alternatively we could end up front-loading a contract, the big guns offer pathetic money for our players in the final year, and they walk away at the end for free to a richer club with the same net gain over the contract.

If Brescia or Palermo make it clear they're after you before that last year by tabling albeit pitiful offers, you're hardly likely to sign another contract. You'd ride it out and fuck off anyway. What I'm saying here is that this option doesn't guarantee us a transfer fee for our talent, which is the problem that needs to be addressed here.

Quote:
 
That next paragraph of yours of placing financial burden on the players demonstrates how impossible and undesirable it is to prevent a good player of ours moving on to better things, and how, morally, such a solution is indefensible. On a, y'know, human level. So, erm, well done for demonstrating that.


It's completely unacceptable that an asset defaults to 0 value once a time-period has expired, regardless of any attributes. That's how leagues like our own are in the state they are now. The Bosman Ruling not only stopped the restriction of fielding more than 'x' amount of foreign players, effectively undermining the development of our own homegrown talent, but gave permission for players to control almost everything.

It was a very poorly conceived solution to the problem raised by Bosman. So if we're to try to balance the situation back in favour of club prosperity, we have to anchor players down at a club. I'll retract what I said about the burden having to be financial until I or someone else comes up with a workable plan, but there needs to be more of some sort of burden on a player.

Thankfully I think Johnny Russell is an honest chap and will help us out, but there are more Scott Allans out there than Johnny Russells. The thought of letting Gomis, Buaben et al walk away from us for nothing makes my blood boil. (Almost as much as when Jason Scotland was denied a working permit for the SPL and granted one for the 1st Division.)
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Setenza
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Naebody
Apr 26 2013, 09:26 AM
Sometimes, I find this board dispiriting. Then I remember it's probably a reasonable reflection of the conversations had at all levels of professional football, and I find that dispiriting instead.

Can I try (yet another) different tack? Forget this is football for a moment. Put it in the context of your own employment, whatever that might be. Pushing buttons, selling shit, digging holes, whatever.

Your employer wants you to go on the senior management training programme. You'll get your current salary. The course lasts a minimum of three years and you'll be reviewed every six months for promotion out of the scheme and into the boardroom.

On starting the course, your employer offers you an interest-free loan equivalent to 50% of your salary. The loan needs to repayed in the final year of the training course.

Outcome one: you ace the course, get a promotion within the first two years and move into management. You benefit because you have earned 2.5 years of wages in two years as well as a promotion. Your employer has benefited by identifying and training a senior manager for just 25% more than they're paying you to sell shit or push buttons at the moment.

Outcome two: you're mediocre but are showing some promise. Some time within the first two years your employer decides offer an extension of your training scheme contract, in the expectation that you will eventually make the cut. You benefit by kicking the loan repayment forward by a few years. Your employer benefits from not losing a promising employee in which it's already invested.

Outcome three: you prove yourself to be crap. Your employer says at the end of year two that you're probably going to fail the training course and you have to pay back the 50% of your wages you borrowed two years before. You may wish to slack off in your final year but that is unlikely to help your chance of proving your employer wrong, or improving your job prospects with any other employer.

Now, ignoring football and based on your circumstances, tell me why you would not want to take the above offer. Or, if you would take it, tell me how you would exploit it to benefit you instead of (rather than as well as) your employer.

We'll find these unintended consequences somehow, damnit.



Let's say I'm in the last option. 3 years is up and I go looking for new job.

First thing new perspective employer will see is that I'm not very good. Never mind, neither is the company, so it could work.

As the new employer, front loading for a failure doesn't make sense. They hit as low as they can, for short as can.


Look at Daly. Who'd offer a 3 year deal to him? Except then obviously.

With his knees, who'd offer anything longer than a 6 month deal to mark Wilson now? The front loaded system doesnt really work in these cases, where people aren't on the up.

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Hamish
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Ian McCall
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Naebody
Apr 26 2013, 11:51 AM
Though even the most nebulous of management consultants won't reject an idea out of hand with a a single Powerpoint slide that says: "it'll never work because tits and dragons." That's what I find tiring.
Nor would a management consultant propose an idea on slide (page) 3 - and then dismiss it three slides later.

Which is what you have done.
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Naebody
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Setenza
Apr 26 2013, 04:19 PM
Let's say I'm in the last option. 3 years is up and I go looking for new job.

First thing new perspective employer will see is that I'm not very good. Never mind, neither is the company, so it could work.

As the new employer, front loading for a failure doesn't make sense. They hit as low as they can, for short as can.


Look at Daly. Who'd offer a 3 year deal to him? Except then obviously.

With his knees, who'd offer anything longer than a 6 month deal to mark Wilson now? The front loaded system doesnt really work in these cases, where people aren't on the up.

That's why you don't use it in these cases. Once again, one size does not fit all. For f*ck sake.

As to your first point, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Quote:
 
Though even the most nebulous of management consultants won't reject an idea out of hand with a a single Powerpoint slide that says: "it'll never work because tits and dragons." That's what I find tiring.
Nor would a management consultant propose an idea on slide (page) 3 - and then dismiss it three slides later.

Which is what you have done.



Hamish, you're right. Some time ago I mentioned an immensely complicated rolling contract structure that included a paydown. WTOYB then suggested a much more simple contract structure that seemed much better, which moved the argument forward. I hadn't anticipated this becaue I don't have a time machine. I apologise for not having a time machine. For f*ck sake.
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findus
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Middle-dipping / Middle-loaded contracts, anyone?
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reekie
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Okay, I'm going to gave to ask.
How would this help in the current, Russell situation?

Two years ago he signed a three-year contract worth, let's say, £1k per week.
In this model he'd have earned £1500 p/w last season and £1000 p/w this season.

Now, all that's different from the current reality is that United have given Russell half of his final year's wage.

He's still not signing an extension and leaving for a, relatively, cut-price fee.

Isn't the crucial thing that we need to never let players have less than two years remaining on their contracts?

Might it be better to apply this method to four-year contracts?
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Skeletor
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reekie
Apr 27 2013, 09:23 AM
Isn't the crucial thing that we need to never let players have less than two years remaining on their contracts?

Might it be better to apply this method to four-year contracts?
Yeah ideally for the club, contracts never end. That gives them a maximum control over their asset. But now we're post-Bosman, I think you're right that the bumper should always be at least 2 years remaining.

How about, we sign players on an "Extender Contract". We can sign them for what they're worth now in terms of wages, on say a 3 year contract. After year 1, we negotiate and add an extension block of 1 year+ into the middle of the contract, based on improvement. If they've been good, we'll apply an increase in wages p/w for the rest of this Extender Year, plus adding the year on. So next season they're playing on a wage rise but only for a year, and we've kicked on the remaining 2 years of the contract for a year. We then continue to extend per year and apply wage increases if the player is improving and showing they're worth retention. If not, we can offer the same wage plus the extension, if they're decent enough to keep, or not offer them an extension and let them play out the contract from there in on the wage rate initially agreed.

Does this work?
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