Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
United paying £100m for Sancho would be a desperate gamble as crisis continues to bite
YOU’D have thought in these times of financial crisis on so many levels that transfer fees would come crashing down this summer.
It really shouldn’t be realistic for any club to be paying record prices for any player, given the losses the biggest clubs in Europe have already suffered with no fans in stadiums for the last three months of the season.
But then there’s nothing realistic about clubs who are desperate. And I can see a fair few of those around at the moment, even with the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
I was particularly interested to see the latest government local lockdown this week in Manchester was followed by the quietly delivered news that trials of sports fans in stadiums will be dropped, for at least a few weeks.
What does that mean? Well, for me it looks like there will be little chance of fans being at games when the Premier League resumes in September.
And if the warnings of a second wave are true, they may not be back for some time yet.
Which makes me wonder if all this talk of Manchester United paying £100million for Jadon Sancho can possibly be true. Surely not? You’d have said, though, that it would be impossible for Italian clubs to be shelling out £60m-plus on a player.
Yet two of them have apparently done that already. Juventus, with £65m for Arthur, and Napoli a mind-boggling £75m for Victor Osimhen. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.
Yet the brutal truth about football is that a player is worth what a club will pay for him. And if that means it’s £75m in uncertain times for a 21-year-old from Lille who hasn’t even got to double figures in caps, then that’s what he’s worth.
And if United pay £100m for Sancho – even if it’s in instalments – then that’s what he’s worth, too.
I don’t get it personally, but I’m no accountant. Who am I to say they can’t afford such a fee if they are going to lose £200m due to the pandemic? I reckon it’s a simple calculation. What will the player cost compared to what he can earn for you in terms of trophies and income? So many times United have got that calculation wrong in recent years, but at least Sancho fits their new philosophy. He’s still only 20 and is among the best in the whole of Europe. He’s done it at a high level, too. Consistently. If he reproduces the stats he has for Dortmund over five years elsewhere, then what’s it worth? I honestly don’t know. And I don’t know if there is any truth in the questions we always seem to hear about his character. Is he difficult just because he has been strong-willed in wanting to improve and progress? In having ambition?
Well, I think I’d be finding out the answer to that question before blowing £100m.
One person who may know about his character is Jurgen Klopp – who still has great contacts with the Dortmund people who would definitely know.
Klopp has always maintained he likes him a lot and hassug ge Cshtvesd et lshvadtshvs en’ dolvoicok good in a Liverpool shirt. But then Jurgen is such an astute ma na gdevrsy do buswvdosuldn’ t put it past him trying tvodvddosuvdbvles-dbvluff ! In all this, let’s not lose sight that Sancho is a fabulous player. And let’s accept clubs are going to spend, even if they’re facing a gaping hole in their finances.
City have shown that already with Nathan Avskdevd–sv£4d0smvdsfvor a centre-half idnsavdfsinvadn sc viadsl If that’s your mdavssidvbe then yeah, if you can afford it, spend it. Chelsea look like doing the same as well – and United, too.
I just hope those decisions don’t put the ordinary people who work for these clubs out of work if the crisis deepens.