Sweating your liabilities - do Everton B win promotion?
Any players and clubs mentioned in this blog and just there for illustrative purposes. I know Vlasic wouldn't accept a loan more to Bolton.
I did a twitter poll over the weekend asking this question.
Would this team, of players who have played <20% of the minutes available for Everton this year win the Championship?
Marteen Stekelenberg
Mason Holgate Phil Jagielka Ashley Williams Leighton Baines
Morgan Schneiderlin Tom Davies
Nikola Vlasic Kieran Dowell
Cenk Tosun Oumar Niasse
subs Yannick Bolasie, Joe Williams, Callum Connolly, Antonee Robinson, Matt Pennington, Henry Onyekuru, Mo Besic, Cuco Martina
The consensus was that 2/3rds of over 200 voters thought they would either win or finish easily in the top 6.
Several people commented that the front 6 would be the best in the league by a long way but the defence was the stuff of nightmares.
I agree with that view.
You could probably improve that team from within the squad I mentioned with a 3-4-3 formation adding Onyekuru (permit pending!) to the attack and dropping out one of the centre backs to add more pace to the attack.
And if we were strict about the <20% of playing time rule I'm pretty sure we could recruit Lookman for our title charge too.
The chain of logic that I draw from this goes something like this:
1. Everton have a massive squad of OK players.
2. Everton spend a lot of money on players who don't actually kick a football that much
3. Those footballers who don't kick a football that much probably would like to kick a football
4. But if they do want to kick a ball they probably wouldn't take a pay cut
5. So is there a way they could get match time and retain their wages? And from a human side not to have to uproot their families.
6. You could loan them but loaning clubs won't pay all the wages, in fact they'll only pay a small percentage and only 4 players could go to any one club.
7. Inactive players are not assets, they are liabilities, the value of their outstanding playing contracts exceeds their potential transfer value.
8. This will be the case for any player where the wage they are on is over the market value for players of their current ability level.
9. So what can clubs do with these players to minimise their losses?
10. They have no market value, loaning them out will only bring minimal financial returns and you have little control over their use. The player can reject the move.
So how about this:
1. Everton approach a Championship club, ideally one close to Liverpool. Say, given their current financial woes, Bolton Wanderers.
2. They make the arrangement that Everton will transfer the contracts of the above players to Bolton Wanderers with a clause that Everton pay 100% of the wages for the duration of the player contracts.
3. Bolton have £0 extra to find, Everton's liabilities are unchanged.
4. Every player has a "buy back for free" clause for Everton so that if the player attracts a buyer then Everton can buy back and sell on.
5. In the event of promotion the guaranteed financial wealth generated is split 50/50 between the clubs.
To me it looks like a win/win/win situation.
Everton turn a guaranteed loss into a worse case break even, best case £100m of TV money situation.
Bolton get a promotion chasing squad for no risk and no investment. They can reallocate their playing budget to plug the gaps in the incoming squad (buy some centre backs) or pay off their debt to be better placed in the future.
The players retain their PL salaries but get to play first football every week with an aim of reaching the PL again or establishing themselves as good players.
Everton get a good environment for their promising young players like Dowell, Davies and Vlasic to play 40+ games.
I am aware there are multiple ownership rules, there are also rules about clubs having undue influence over eachother. However in this case Bolton would remain a separate entity. They would be free to exit the arrangement whenever they liked. They would pick their own starting XI. They would retain their identity, be able to grow their youth academy, recruit their own players, negotiate their own sponsorship deals and do everything Bolton Wanderers do that makes them them.
Everton get, not just to sweat their assets, but their liabilities too.
I did a twitter poll over the weekend asking this question.
Would this team, of players who have played <20% of the minutes available for Everton this year win the Championship?
Marteen Stekelenberg
Mason Holgate Phil Jagielka Ashley Williams Leighton Baines
Morgan Schneiderlin Tom Davies
Nikola Vlasic Kieran Dowell
Cenk Tosun Oumar Niasse
subs Yannick Bolasie, Joe Williams, Callum Connolly, Antonee Robinson, Matt Pennington, Henry Onyekuru, Mo Besic, Cuco Martina
The consensus was that 2/3rds of over 200 voters thought they would either win or finish easily in the top 6.
Several people commented that the front 6 would be the best in the league by a long way but the defence was the stuff of nightmares.
I agree with that view.
 |
| Turning sweaty liabilities into potential assets |
You could probably improve that team from within the squad I mentioned with a 3-4-3 formation adding Onyekuru (permit pending!) to the attack and dropping out one of the centre backs to add more pace to the attack.
And if we were strict about the <20% of playing time rule I'm pretty sure we could recruit Lookman for our title charge too.
The chain of logic that I draw from this goes something like this:
1. Everton have a massive squad of OK players.
2. Everton spend a lot of money on players who don't actually kick a football that much
3. Those footballers who don't kick a football that much probably would like to kick a football
4. But if they do want to kick a ball they probably wouldn't take a pay cut
5. So is there a way they could get match time and retain their wages? And from a human side not to have to uproot their families.
6. You could loan them but loaning clubs won't pay all the wages, in fact they'll only pay a small percentage and only 4 players could go to any one club.
7. Inactive players are not assets, they are liabilities, the value of their outstanding playing contracts exceeds their potential transfer value.
8. This will be the case for any player where the wage they are on is over the market value for players of their current ability level.
9. So what can clubs do with these players to minimise their losses?
10. They have no market value, loaning them out will only bring minimal financial returns and you have little control over their use. The player can reject the move.
So how about this:
1. Everton approach a Championship club, ideally one close to Liverpool. Say, given their current financial woes, Bolton Wanderers.
2. They make the arrangement that Everton will transfer the contracts of the above players to Bolton Wanderers with a clause that Everton pay 100% of the wages for the duration of the player contracts.
3. Bolton have £0 extra to find, Everton's liabilities are unchanged.
4. Every player has a "buy back for free" clause for Everton so that if the player attracts a buyer then Everton can buy back and sell on.
5. In the event of promotion the guaranteed financial wealth generated is split 50/50 between the clubs.
To me it looks like a win/win/win situation.
Everton turn a guaranteed loss into a worse case break even, best case £100m of TV money situation.
Bolton get a promotion chasing squad for no risk and no investment. They can reallocate their playing budget to plug the gaps in the incoming squad (buy some centre backs) or pay off their debt to be better placed in the future.
The players retain their PL salaries but get to play first football every week with an aim of reaching the PL again or establishing themselves as good players.
Everton get a good environment for their promising young players like Dowell, Davies and Vlasic to play 40+ games.
I am aware there are multiple ownership rules, there are also rules about clubs having undue influence over eachother. However in this case Bolton would remain a separate entity. They would be free to exit the arrangement whenever they liked. They would pick their own starting XI. They would retain their identity, be able to grow their youth academy, recruit their own players, negotiate their own sponsorship deals and do everything Bolton Wanderers do that makes them them.
Everton get, not just to sweat their assets, but their liabilities too.
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