nelto
Andy Sinton
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What is our partnership with Madrid?
- Thread starter N10 Yiddo
- Start date
Spursalot
Jimmy McCormick
Yeah, the fans trust want to end a partnership which they have absolutely minimal knowledge of. Sure that will be listened to.
Muppets.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
Why are you blaming the fans for that? Whose decision was it not to tell the fans anything about this 'partnership', forcing them to make extrapolations based on the meager evidence (best commercial practices, yada yada) presented by the club in just the one statement on the website?
Sure, it could have been worded better ('either terminate the partnership or provide more information to the supporters about how it actually benefits us as a club', emphasis very much on the 'us') but it isn't really their fault. All we as fans see is a partnership being signed after the tapping up and eventual sale of our best player, followed by more tapping up and the sale of our next best player the year after that, with the summer punctuated by blatant disregard for our position on the matter and insulting behaviour from the likes of Zidane. So what are we supposed to do? Sure, trusting Levy to do what's best for the club is one avenue, but here it looks suspiciously like the club and Levy have been somewhat bullied by the c**ts from Madrid throughout the whole saga, so maybe Levy doesn't fully have control over the situation despite his best intentions.
It's tied to a somewhat larger issue, but I do feel that clubs here in England are giving less and less information to their supporters, which is an eminently ominous sign. Our club is one of the principal offenders in this regard. Take 'undisclosed fees', for example. Why on Earth must there be such secrecy over what the club paid for a certain player? Sure, keep their wages secret by all means, but why hide the transfer fee? If it's to shield players from supporters basing their views of them on their transfer fees, then it's already failed because we do that anyway, just based on the often inflated fees bandied around by various media outlets. And there is no way that revealing that information advantages our competitors. the only possible way it could hurt us is if the clubs we're trying to buy players from extrapolate from the fees how much/how little we have left over and how much we're willing to pay, but even that is a spurious proposition when you consider that the uncertainty over how much a club's got in the bank due to the wildly inflated/understated media guesses on fees paid has surely hurt at least some buying clubs, because in the absence of full knowledge I expect selling clubs will stick to a cast-iron price that is non-negotiable rather than adjust their demands based on the well-publicized financial situation of the buying club.
It's a dangerous trend which will eventually see us being told to shut up, sit down, pay up and watch the game in a morbid silence as 'Thank you loyal customers!' pops up on the Jumbotron screen before kick-off. Anything more than that? Forget it.
Anyway, returning to the main topic, supporters act based on information given to them about the dealings of the club, which in our case is almost nothing. Therefore, until this distinctly unpalatable 'partnership' is explained in more detail to the clubs' supporters, I don't blame them for trying to get it terminated.
Spursalot
Jimmy McCormick
Supporters acting on a lack of information and making statements that they hope the club will listen too based on an emotional response to a transfer. That's what makes them muppets.
They have no idea what the deal could be doing for us. Cancelling it could very well be cutting off our nose to spite our face. When people have very information about the subject, it is generally best that they do shut up.
It is also assuming for some strange reason that the people making the decisions at the club are not acting in the best interest of the club. Why would they do this when they want to increase the value of the club? It makes no sense.
And why should we as fans be in the know? Sure it would be nice to, but I can understand when information is kept on a more confidential basis, like transfers. I am happy to find out early, but I can understand when things are kept hidden from us.
I'm not saying don't sit here and speculate as to what such a partnership might entail mind. Just trying to tell the club what to do about it is so ridiculous it's funny.
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DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
It is generally best that they shut up because they don't have any information? Well, there is a way around that, you know. Give them more information. If not, then the club shouldn't really be surprised when fans, acting on what little they've been told, demand the cancellation of a partnership that from the outside looking in, seems very one sided.
And as for the people running the club acting against its interests, no one is perfect, and people do make mistakes. I love Levy, but he is included in this. If we depend on this partnership so much that we're unwilling to cut it off despite everything that's gone on this summer, then the people running the club have made mistakes elsewhere that preclude the running of the club in a way that doesn't rely on Madrid supplying us the means to effect our daily operations. Again, I suspect that has a lot to do with centralizing all footballing operations (scouting, training, buying) in the hands of Harry during his time here (which probably precludes our attempts to rebuild a global scouting network or develop the best training techniques now, post-Redknapp), but if that is what forces us to keep this partnership going while Madrid tap up our players, then the club should at least divulge some of that to keep the fans from doing stuff like this, regardless of how effective these sorts of things are. Because that was a mistake, and like I said, everyone makes mistakes and generally end up getting forgiveness for them. But with no information on what benefits this partnership gives us or why it's necessary, all we as fans can do is demand it ends, because all we see is a one-way street.
Phil Silvers
Ricardo Rocha
Spursalot
Jimmy McCormick
So the club should just give out information that helps them because the fans will get ****y? They should start announcing who we are chasing in the transfer window too then I guess, the fans get just as ****y about that.
What has the partnership done this summer? Would Madrid have not come in for bale if we didn't have a partnership with them?
That's ********. Madrid would have come in for him whatever happened.
How do you know part of the agreement isn't keeping the agreement confidential? After All this is Real Madrid we are dealing with, would they want the world to know what we had managed to grasp from them as part of the modric deal? No. Because Madrid are all about looking like the big guns.
It's a bargaining chip that Madrid have in any deal they might want to pursue.
Nobody is perfect no, I accept that, but can you give me a single downside to this partnership? As far as I can tell, buying and selling players has little or nothing to do with it. If they had included bale in the agreement I can't see them having agreed last summer to pay us over 80m for him.
thfcsteff
Terry Dyson
:ross:
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
As far as I can tell, your stance on this seems to be:
1) The fans should shut up and accept the single paragraph of information the club provided on the partnership because to do otherwise would be tantamount to demanding knowledge on every target the club pursues in the transfer window and compromising every single secret operation of the club forevermore.
2) The partnership did not affect the Bale transfer in any way, and they would have come in for him regardless of the partnership, refused to sell Ozil to us regardless of the partnership, negotiated with Arsenal for Ozil behind our backs regardless of the partnership, and refused to tell us about it until it was done regardless of the partnership.
3) If Madrid wants us to keep the details of this partnership secret, we should do so, because otherwise (shock, horror) they might get a bit upset with us and offer less for one of our players than they otherwise would have.
4) The partnership does not cover transfers, so we should accept whatever they do in that particular market because they continue to obligingly provide the nebulous, top-secret 'assistance' that is apparently so vital to the club's functioning that it is on par with conducting our own transfer business when it comes to not telling the fans about it.
Well, firstly, if demanding more information than a tersely-worded paragraph on the club website is tantamount to invading Baldini's bedroom and threatening him with death if he doesn't reveal all our transfer targets, then perhaps the club should give it up all together. Cease reporting official deals on the website, cease telling us about Tottenham Fluffies and Legends' matches, cease holding an AGM (GHod knows we don't have to anymore) and just send us a tersely worded email each summer. "This is your Spurs(tm) number. You must display it prominently on your forehead at all times within the stadium. These are the dates of the matches. This is your seat. Come and watch the players, whose identities must remain a secret due to their importance to club operations. They will have masks on, and barcodes on the back of their shirts that can be scanned after the season concludes so that you can find out who they were. Singing is strictly prohibited due to our chants being vital to the visual and auditory identity of the club. Thank you for your patronage, customer. Signed, D.C."
Secondly, agreed, Madrid would have come in for him anyway. Apparently they started negotiating with Barnett and that other agent before last season had even finished. I fail to see what that has to do with terminating this partnership now, after the transfer has finished and after the tactics they have employed to get our player. As far as I can see, they have used the same tactics they have for other transfers right down to the ceaseless Marca barrage and patronizing Zidane et al comments. Nice way to treat a 'partner'.
Thirdly, awww, we shouldn't hurt the feelings of ickle Madrid, otherwise they'll offer us less for our players and won't sell their players to us! Well, I remember them trying to haggle all the way down to the final day, crying that 80 million was too much, getting all their legends to affirm that 80 million was too much, trying to force the issue and lower the price by getting Bale to hand in a transfer request, and going behind our backs to talk directly to Barnett before even approaching the club itself, tapping up the player and forcing us to negotiate on a player we didn't want to sell. It might be me, but I can't see any 'generosity' in those actions, or any attempt to offer us a good value for our player that wasn't forced on them by Levy. And as for selling us players, I have yet to see Coentrao turn up to sign for us. Or Morata. Or Jese. And Ozil is prancing around at those ****s down the road, for some odd reason.
And finally, if the way they have acted in their transfer dealings does not provide enough of a reason to terminate our other links with them, then perhaps we rely on them far more than is healthy or good for the independent future of this club.
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
I think that the Ozil deal caught Levy by surprise. It's probably safe to say the Bale was sold some time ago but the announcement not made for strategic reasons related to pending transfers. That may in turn have prompted a degree of silence from RM about the potential sale of Ozil. I find it hard to believe that Arsenal was the only club willing to foot his transfer fee and wages. If it was widely know that Ozil was on the market you'd have to think there would have been a raft of oil backed clubs willing to throw their hard earned cash (
) at RM. A bit of conspiracy theory but I am still amazed Ozil went to the perennial underachievers that is L'****.
) at RM. A bit of conspiracy theory but I am still amazed Ozil went to the perennial underachievers that is L'****.
Jurgen the German
Tommy Harmer
I'm still surprised he picked them. If you believe the papers, he turned down United and PSG because he wanted to work with Wenger? I mean, seriously? Yes he does have a fantastic track record of developing young players and sending them on their way to bigger clubs (Van Persie, Fabregas, Nasri, Cole) but Ozil is doing the complete opposite. He was at one of the biggest clubs in the world, now he's taken a step down. Wenger hasn't won a trophy since 2005.
Craig_J
Eidur Gudjohnsen
What harm could it possibly do to say how we benefit from this deal? We don't seem to have benefited financially or received anything in return. We've lost 2 of our best players. If this agreement is in the faint hope that Real will eb willing to give us some players, which also doesn't seem to be the case, then that hasn't been achieved.
Next you'll be saying "Stop pestering the govnerment over how we benefit from our relationship with the USA. You're a load of muppets who no nothing about what the terms are." Doesn't quite work like that I'm afraid me old mucka!
I imagine that Levy’s main interest in a ‘strategic partnership’ with Real has nothing to do with players, like so many believe after jumping to conclusions, and will be along the lines of learning the PR methods, business decisions, marketing techniques, sponsorship opportunities and commercial deals that mean they’re the most profitable club in the world by some distance, despite spending unbelievable amounts on playing staff.
How do you explain that to the fans? Do you want to announce to the world that you're learning marketting secrets from madrid? Do you want the press to know? Hell, do Real even want to let you tell people that?
I may be speculating but is it a coincidence that a year after we went into this deal, one of our players has had so much media exposure - he was in the middle of times square ffs – that you can’t walk past a billboard without his face on it and that he’s being talked about in the same bracket as Ronaldo and Messi despite being a clearly inferior player to those two (not a slur in itself but he’s nowhere near them, imo)? I don’t think so, as we’ve had exciting, talented and prolific players before (keane and berbatov) that got nowhere near that level of exposure. He became a Galactico while he was at our club, at the same sort of level that Beckham and Ronaldo reached and with far more marketting exposure than any of ****'s individual 'invincibles' managed; more than Gerrard Rooney etc.
Obviously Bale is a lot more marketable himself than either Keane or Berbatov were, but still, the order of magnitude between how highly they (and modric) were thought of in the press and the sponsorship deals they got, and what we’ve seen from bale in the last 8 months (and it really is the last 8 months, as of last summer to the world media he was the really fast one who scored some great goals against Inter, but 4-5 months ago he started to be seen absolutely everywhere) is quite something.
Levy wants to take spurs from being realistically the 6th biggest in the country, to the biggest, and how better to do that than by learning from a club which is by far and away the most successful at monetizing its success in the world. Sure you can argue that it’s down to write offs by princes or ludicrous tv contracts but over the last 10 years Real have also made obscene amounts by taking advantage of the images of their players and merchandising.
Yeah we’ve sold them our best two players over the past year, but its not like we gave them away cheaply; if RM weren’t in for Modric when he wanted to leave how much do people think we would have got for him given he had been desperate to go for over a year? Most people agreed they’d rather he go to Madrid than Chelsea or Man U at the time. Who would have believed that we’d get a WR fee for Bale 6 months ago? Even when he was repeatedly winning matches for us single handedly the most fanatical of spurs fans would have struggled rationalising how he was worth 4 RVP’s, 2.5 Modric’s and more than a Ronaldo who had just scored 36 odd goals to win ManU the league. I could understand the petition and general anger if we'd sold them below market prices but we didn't, we took them for every penny.
That's the thing here - the natural order of things was maintained, a big rich club came in for a star player, we didn't want to sell so they unsettled them, we were left in a tough position but made the best of it and drove a hard bargain. We don't like it when it happens to us but in turn we went and took the star players from roma, ajax, twente etc. whether it's by taking advantage of their contract situation, our dofs knowledge of their situation or just our financial and historical clout, just as Madrid used their appeal, press and agent power. That's football and happens regardless of any special relationship.
Sure we’d like to keep our best players but as we saw with Carrick, Berbatov and Keane, it doesn’t require Madrid to be involved for us to lose them, yet with them involved we don’t have to face them in the league twice a year and we get even more money.
Thanks to selling Bale to Madrid we’ve now got two young potentially world class replacements in Eriksen and Lamela who could well become just as valuable if they reach their potential alongside some luck and good marketing, a Brazilan first team box to box player in Paulinho, a proven goalscorer in Soldado and a number of other quality squad players, without spending a penny of any potentially earmarked transfer budget.
Contrast that to if Man U were interested in the fergie era, we’d have realistically lost him for £30-£35m and replaced him with Ince and McCarthy, and got one of their youngsters on loan. I’m not even being facetious – we clearly had an agreement to delay the transfer till we’d concluded our business and while we repeatedly stated we were spending independently of Bale, to avoid being quoted excessive fees, and they agreed to it. We took them for £85m and made them shut up while we did it. They even started claiming we weren't agreeing to stuff in the press the week beforehand to further muddy the waters - stirring, or helping us to tie up Eriksen for the bargain price of 11m and lamela for 25m+add ons?
Yeah the Ozil sale is maddening but this is what Real do, they probably sell too few shirts with his name on the back so didn’t want to keep him regardless of how good he is, and **** were the only ones who could pay the fee, the wages and get the deal done quickly enough. You’d think they’d have learnt from Mackele that selling key team members because they’re not as fashionable as your new recruits will backfire but with Perez in charge common sense just doesn’t factor into it!
I have no doubt that if they were willing to sell we would have enquired but if Levy, Baldini and AVB either couldn’t make the deal work, sell the project to Ozil or decided Eriksen is a better buy for the money then sod it, they’ve done enough this transfer window to earn my trust regardless of what the gooners do; we’ve still strengthened the essential areas of our squad more than any other team aside from City, and are world class fullbacks, a motivated Ade away from being largely complete, despite, or possible because of, reals infatuation with bale.
How do you explain that to the fans? Do you want to announce to the world that you're learning marketting secrets from madrid? Do you want the press to know? Hell, do Real even want to let you tell people that?
I may be speculating but is it a coincidence that a year after we went into this deal, one of our players has had so much media exposure - he was in the middle of times square ffs – that you can’t walk past a billboard without his face on it and that he’s being talked about in the same bracket as Ronaldo and Messi despite being a clearly inferior player to those two (not a slur in itself but he’s nowhere near them, imo)? I don’t think so, as we’ve had exciting, talented and prolific players before (keane and berbatov) that got nowhere near that level of exposure. He became a Galactico while he was at our club, at the same sort of level that Beckham and Ronaldo reached and with far more marketting exposure than any of ****'s individual 'invincibles' managed; more than Gerrard Rooney etc.
Obviously Bale is a lot more marketable himself than either Keane or Berbatov were, but still, the order of magnitude between how highly they (and modric) were thought of in the press and the sponsorship deals they got, and what we’ve seen from bale in the last 8 months (and it really is the last 8 months, as of last summer to the world media he was the really fast one who scored some great goals against Inter, but 4-5 months ago he started to be seen absolutely everywhere) is quite something.
Levy wants to take spurs from being realistically the 6th biggest in the country, to the biggest, and how better to do that than by learning from a club which is by far and away the most successful at monetizing its success in the world. Sure you can argue that it’s down to write offs by princes or ludicrous tv contracts but over the last 10 years Real have also made obscene amounts by taking advantage of the images of their players and merchandising.
Yeah we’ve sold them our best two players over the past year, but its not like we gave them away cheaply; if RM weren’t in for Modric when he wanted to leave how much do people think we would have got for him given he had been desperate to go for over a year? Most people agreed they’d rather he go to Madrid than Chelsea or Man U at the time. Who would have believed that we’d get a WR fee for Bale 6 months ago? Even when he was repeatedly winning matches for us single handedly the most fanatical of spurs fans would have struggled rationalising how he was worth 4 RVP’s, 2.5 Modric’s and more than a Ronaldo who had just scored 36 odd goals to win ManU the league. I could understand the petition and general anger if we'd sold them below market prices but we didn't, we took them for every penny.
That's the thing here - the natural order of things was maintained, a big rich club came in for a star player, we didn't want to sell so they unsettled them, we were left in a tough position but made the best of it and drove a hard bargain. We don't like it when it happens to us but in turn we went and took the star players from roma, ajax, twente etc. whether it's by taking advantage of their contract situation, our dofs knowledge of their situation or just our financial and historical clout, just as Madrid used their appeal, press and agent power. That's football and happens regardless of any special relationship.
Sure we’d like to keep our best players but as we saw with Carrick, Berbatov and Keane, it doesn’t require Madrid to be involved for us to lose them, yet with them involved we don’t have to face them in the league twice a year and we get even more money.
Thanks to selling Bale to Madrid we’ve now got two young potentially world class replacements in Eriksen and Lamela who could well become just as valuable if they reach their potential alongside some luck and good marketing, a Brazilan first team box to box player in Paulinho, a proven goalscorer in Soldado and a number of other quality squad players, without spending a penny of any potentially earmarked transfer budget.
Contrast that to if Man U were interested in the fergie era, we’d have realistically lost him for £30-£35m and replaced him with Ince and McCarthy, and got one of their youngsters on loan. I’m not even being facetious – we clearly had an agreement to delay the transfer till we’d concluded our business and while we repeatedly stated we were spending independently of Bale, to avoid being quoted excessive fees, and they agreed to it. We took them for £85m and made them shut up while we did it. They even started claiming we weren't agreeing to stuff in the press the week beforehand to further muddy the waters - stirring, or helping us to tie up Eriksen for the bargain price of 11m and lamela for 25m+add ons?
Yeah the Ozil sale is maddening but this is what Real do, they probably sell too few shirts with his name on the back so didn’t want to keep him regardless of how good he is, and **** were the only ones who could pay the fee, the wages and get the deal done quickly enough. You’d think they’d have learnt from Mackele that selling key team members because they’re not as fashionable as your new recruits will backfire but with Perez in charge common sense just doesn’t factor into it!
I have no doubt that if they were willing to sell we would have enquired but if Levy, Baldini and AVB either couldn’t make the deal work, sell the project to Ozil or decided Eriksen is a better buy for the money then sod it, they’ve done enough this transfer window to earn my trust regardless of what the gooners do; we’ve still strengthened the essential areas of our squad more than any other team aside from City, and are world class fullbacks, a motivated Ade away from being largely complete, despite, or possible because of, reals infatuation with bale.
Hootnow
Jermaine Jenas
Very good post Ginolius.
I agree that the partnership probably benefits us along the kind of areas you've highlighted there.
Their methods in pursuing Bale this summer have been rather distasteful (but they do this so often and to so many clubs of different sizes, they probably don't even think they're doing anything wrong) but people who are suggesting that they were able to buy our 2 players because of the agreement are living in some kind of dreamworld. Firstly, the first one was bought before the agreement. Secondly, this agreement doesn't mean they 'go easy' on us and never approach one of our players again. They signed 2 excellent players, both for a rather large amount of money and we get to sigh a breath of relief that they're not still in the UK. Thirdly, I'm sure they would have been able to get in touch with us regardless of whether we had an agreement or not.
The club most likely won't lay out exactly what we're benefiting from it but if it wasn't of benefit, I'm sure we'd already be out.
I agree that the partnership probably benefits us along the kind of areas you've highlighted there.
Their methods in pursuing Bale this summer have been rather distasteful (but they do this so often and to so many clubs of different sizes, they probably don't even think they're doing anything wrong) but people who are suggesting that they were able to buy our 2 players because of the agreement are living in some kind of dreamworld. Firstly, the first one was bought before the agreement. Secondly, this agreement doesn't mean they 'go easy' on us and never approach one of our players again. They signed 2 excellent players, both for a rather large amount of money and we get to sigh a breath of relief that they're not still in the UK. Thirdly, I'm sure they would have been able to get in touch with us regardless of whether we had an agreement or not.
The club most likely won't lay out exactly what we're benefiting from it but if it wasn't of benefit, I'm sure we'd already be out.
I
indianspur
Guest
the agreement is that they come in and take or best players whenever they want
next summer it will be one or two out of Lloris, Vertonghen and Sandro
get used to it
next summer it will be one or two out of Lloris, Vertonghen and Sandro
get used to it
Hootnow
Jermaine Jenas
No, them being Real Madrid and us being Spurs means they can come in and take our best players. It is what they do. And considering they've done it with Ronaldo, Kaka, real Ronaldo, Zidane, Nedved, Carlos, Figo and countless other players, them being Real Madrid and other clubs being basically any other club means they come in and take their best players when they want.
Precisely: it's a measure of how far we've come that it's Madrid after our players - a club that only goes after the best in the world.
The scum were in this position for years and they did the same - they sold their top players, invested the money in a couple of young up and coming players and after a few iterations they had a quality side. Meanwhile as we bought 'peak age' players like and joked about wenger liking kids we couldn't keep up as while their players gradually got better and more valuable, ours got slower and worth less.
It's the way most teams that aren't at the top of the pile work, and it's fantastic that we've finally got a reputation and structure that let's us replace Modric with Paulinho, Holtby and Sandro: bale with Lamela, chadli and Eriksen.
If Verts gets bought by real for 35m next year then I'm sure we'll get 3 or 4 replacements with just as much potential to replace him. It's called sustainability and Madrids nonsensical policies make it easier for us, not harder.
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