League One League One Signings - Summer 2019

Mo Eisa next to join Posh for a “7 figure fee”, if they manage to keep Maddison and Toney I’d say their attack will easily best in the league next year.

Broken their transfer record which previously stood at £1.25m

gingerox said:

Mo Eisa next to join Posh for a “7 figure fee”, if they manage to keep Maddison and Toney I’d say their attack will easily best in the league next year.

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They surely have to lose Madison this year. He handed in the transfer request last summer and only has a year left on his contract.

gingerox said:

Mo Eisa next to join Posh for a “7 figure fee”, if they manage to keep Maddison and Toney I’d say their attack will easily best in the league next year.

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Maddison will be gone they’ve already rejected £1.5m there owner has said there expect big money for him still despite having 1 year left

If Whyte getting a finishing touch next season with double figures for goals & assists (which he’s capable) I think he’ll be more valuable with 1 year left than he is currently is now

gingerox said:

Mo Eisa next to join Posh for a “7 figure fee”, if they manage to keep Maddison and Toney I’d say their attack will easily best in the league next year.

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Maddison will almost certainly be off which I guess is how Peterborough can splash the cash.

Marcus Maddison linked to Sunderland.

Wow really?

frenchconnection said:

Liverpool sign two Sunderland players who demanded exits from Stadium of Light

New arrivals at Anfield

metro.co.uk

Wow really?

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Tbf, that is just the usual top club academy poaching by Liverpool. They will be due a fee under EPPP but even with their higher Academy Cat status it won't represent future value.

Sunderland are seeing the reality of many lower leagues clubs and EPPP - you can't stop big teams stealing your talent, and the system is horribly biased to the big teams.

Gary Baldi said:

Sunderland are seeing the reality of many lower leagues clubs and EPPP - you can't stop big teams stealing your talent, and the system is horribly biased to the big teams.

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It’s ridiculously short sighted of those parents though. Their kids will find it really difficult to get near Liverpool’s first team, a lot more difficult than at Sunderland anyway I would’ve thought?

yellowbow said:

It’s ridiculously short sighted of those parents though. Their kids will find it really difficult to get near Liverpool’s first team, a lot more difficult than at Sunderland anyway I would’ve thought?

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Depends how much their kids will get for playing for Liverpool's academy, some get £000s a week.

Marked Ox said:

Depends how much their kids will get for playing for Liverpool's academy, some get £000s a week.

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Surely it isnt all about money at such a young age? Doesn't playing football come into it at all?
Whyte could have gone to Leeds but chose to play in the first team. All is not totally lost these days...

Foley said:

Surely it isnt all about money at such a young age? Doesn't playing football come into it at all?
Whyte could have gone to Leeds but chose to play in the first team. All is not totally lost these days...

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You'll be amazed with some of the stories. Read up on the Chelsea/Real Madrid/Barcelona situations and why UEFA went after them as that gives a real insight.

Marked Ox said:

You'll be amazed with some of the stories. Read up on the Chelsea/Real Madrid/Barcelona situations and why UEFA went after them as that gives a real insight.

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Sure I get that.
I guess that my point is that even these days some players make decisions on footballing and career reasons.
I appreciate that Whyte is not in the same league, but presumably he could have negotiated what double at Leeds than at Oxford and yet chose to come to Oxford.

Marked Ox said:

You'll be amazed with some of the stories. Read up on the Chelsea/Real Madrid/Barcelona situations and why UEFA went after them as that gives a real insight.

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A move to one of these clubs could offer financial stability for life and all it takes is an accident in training and that's the career over.

as i've mentioned before one leading club paid a lad of 11 a fortune to sign with them + around 60k a month and paid the mortgage of the parents for life...what has to be remembered is some of these kids are the players of tomorrow and what incentive to they have when they'll already be set up for life.

Foley said:

Sure I get that.
I guess that my point is that even these days some players make decisions on footballing and career reasons.
I appreciate that Whyte is not in the same league, but presumably he could have negotiated what double at Leeds than at Oxford and yet chose to come to Oxford.

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I don't disagree with your point. But it would take a very confident person with utter belief in their ability at Academy level to turn down £000s a week increase. I have no evidence in the Sunderland case that they are getting a nice payrise but it would be a logical conclusion to make where football is concerned.

A large amount of the kids taken into academies are from very modest to say the least, to actively very poor backgrounds. If they are being offered thousands a week just to be YTS, and at elite level it really is that ballpark, it’s almost impossible for them to turn it down. All you need is one pro contract, even for three years and even if you never get near a first team squad, and you’re talking the best part of 10k a week at a big PL side. Sometimes it’s even more. To put into perspective, 10k a week for three years is £1.5m in earnings. That’s hard to turn down for anybody, but especially for any player from an exceptionally working class background. Any player from the north east is from the poorest area of England, so if you’re a local lad playing for someone like Sunderland and suddenly a Liverpool comes knocking, there’s a huge chance that you’re going to be in a position where turning down the chance to go there even at 14/15 years old cannot be considered. Some of them probably live in houses that aren’t even worth 100k, and clubs like Liverpool can afford to pay any mortgage off that their parents might have, or if they’re from a council estate they can provide their family with their own, decent home almost overnight.

People like to romanticise the notion of football and the idea of playing it safe and doing what’s best to get on the pitch at the weekend, making smart choices and playing the long game etc, but the harsh reality is that the majority of football is nothing but a meat market based on the rich buying and trading in predominantly poor and underprivileged kids. Kids who quite often have not much else in their life bar a football and a pair of boots that they dream of using to get out of where they’re from. Kids who also spend most of their youth watching their mates being rejected, released and sent back to the environment they so badly wanted to get away from. This is also why even when these kids make it and go on to be sought after players at whatever level they break through at, they almost always go where the money is no matter what. They don’t owe anybody anything bar trying their best when they play, and have seen first hand how brutal and cut throat the game is, and how willingly and coldly some of their friends have been tossed aside and sometimes never recovered as a result.

In a nutshell, it’s all about money and getting what’s on offer while it’s there, and getting as far away as possible from the life they’ve known. There are very, very, very few footballers from anything approaching a middle class background, let alone higher. It would be like someone who is starving being told to turn down the steak dinners with all the trimmings because they’re on to a good thing with the crisps and Mars bars. It’s fanciful in the extreme. And as for the Gavin Whyte comment someone made about him turning down Leeds for Oxford, he did no such thing. We made an actual offer and they didn’t - if they bid for him like we did rather than scout and consider him, he wouldn’t be here. Just the same as Sykes was joining Port Vale until we snuck in and offered a bit more money as well as a place in a squad one division above them.

Reluctantly I agree with RB's stark analysis of the situation.

However, there are supposed to be controls in place to prevent too much financial inducement at a young age, and this is one of the reasons that I am pleased that UEFA have caught up with Chelsea. A close friend of my younger son played as a teenager in the academy for a prominent South West club, before being signed by another South West club as an 18-year old. Sadly, he made a couple of JPT appearances only, and was released after a couple of years. However, his father told me that both the clubs that the lad played for complained bitterly that Chelsea (in particular) poached players by offering youngsters money in ways they considered illegal - travel expenses, 'compensation', 'advance payments' that they could 'claim' when they were 18.

oldabingdonian said:

Reluctantly I agree with RB's stark analysis of the situation.

However, there are supposed to be controls in place to prevent too much financial inducement at a young age, and this is one of the reasons that I am pleased that UEFA have caught up with Chelsea. A close friend of my younger son played as a teenager in the academy for a prominent South West club, before being signed by another South West club as an 18-year old. Sadly, he made a couple of JPT appearances only, and was released after a couple of years. However, his father told me that both the clubs that the lad played for complained bitterly that Chelsea (in particular) poached players by offering youngsters money in ways they considered illegal - travel expenses, 'compensation', 'advance payments' that they could 'claim' when they were 18.

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One other common method that has been around for years is the parent or guardian of the player being taken on by an agency in an employment capacity, because you can’t prevent somebody from taking a job - it infringes on their right to employment which is protected by EU and domestic law. There have been a staggering amount of people given various ambiguous or ‘advisory’ roles with football agents on very high salaries over the years, who just happen to have very talented children who are also signed to the agency that employs them. The governing bodies have tried to shut this sort of tactic down as much as possible, but there really is only so much they can do.