metalgear
Luka Modric
I think it is up to Paratici, not Conte nor Levy, to balance the sales and spend vs the overarching budget set by Levy.
That budget might be a net spend of X and a wages to turnover ratio of Y.
Conte and Para will draw up a list of primary, secondary, tertiary targets and work hard to get what they need at that budget.
Note the transfer fee is not a big deal at all it is the wages which are more concerning, because:
*If we can buy someone for £10m and sell them for £10m that is basically (**see later) zero net spend, so wages are the key spend.
*If we can buy someone for £60m and sell them for £60m that is basically (**see later) zero net spend, so wages are the key spend.
That is why we try not to buy older players.
**I know player costs are not paid in full in year 1 and are amortised over the length of the contract but let's not get into the accounting details, I'm just saying that we can spend £777m on someone as long as we can sell them for £888m the day after. The actual cost of a player is not too important, it is the net cost and the wages which matter. See * and ** I really can't be bothered to get too deep into it.
To add to that, it's an iterative process when trading players and assessing their impact. Ultimately Levy approves the performance expectations for Paratici and Conte and if Conte is just thinking about his 18 month contract, he'd be buying more players hitting the ground running and deinvesting on youth. Of course Paratici will be the check and balance and could work with Conte on a more longer term perspective (buy more youth and train them), or he could work on Levy to manage his expectations around building for the future. How would we know for sure? The only thing I an sure about is Levy likes playing the long game rather than paying for results.
In terms of the financial costs, I've mentioned here before that the cfo needs to be responsible for the results on the pitch as much as Levy. Decisions around Net costs is just hiding behong numbers: I'd like to see my cfo talk about how he recommends short and long term costs support the football results and team development, using net figures as checkpoint to ensure a sustainable strategy. Perhaps this time the cfo acknowledges that the football club enabled the stadium build and its gone too far, and now the stadium needs to achieve a profit ability level as payback to the football club to create a vitreous circle.
I've never been more optimistic now with Para-Conte... They are our best chance of getting Levy and the board educated about footballing matters at the scale that Levy aspires to operate at (arnesen was more about youth development).
But I am aware there are risks along the way...when things go bad will Paratici turn into Paracitey and hand Conte to dry? Will Levy and the board continue to have unrealistic demands on the increasing financial investments required to qualify for Champions League? If so will Conte throw a strop and just quit? (Did Mourinho quit to sign on to Roma within a week? ). Will there be new unsuspecting stadium costs, like the huge overruns, that may threaten the footballing monies and will Levy prioritise the stadium like before?
Its not just Paratici in my opinion. More like thfc has outgrown its small club mentality but still stuck with its founders who struggle to update themselves with new big business (football) ways. So it's Para-Conte vs. Levy & Board now.
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