Cut price Berahino deal
TRANSFER TALK
Former super agent Jon Smith revealed in September that Saido Berahino could move to Europe and then back to the Premier League to avoid a tribunal fee, although he never actually mentioned the England Under-21 international by name..
"Well, I talked last week about a player who was going between two Premier League clubs. It broke down because of the fee, it couldn’t be agreed and it was in excess of £20m - they were only two or three million apart.
“The agent involved was telling me about it and saying that he was annoyed because the player wants to go but the club he’s at wouldn’t let him go because of the fee.
“What’s going to happen is the player is under 24 and in the last year of his contract, so he can give notice in January. If he goes to a club in England he’ll become a tribunal player, which means the fee won’t be far off what it was [£20m], but if he goes abroad it’s compensation, which is £400k.
“So they’ve already got something lined up where the player will go to Europe for a short time, the club will then sell him back here for half the price having made some money.
“The player will get twice the money he is going to get, he’ll have hopefully improved and the agent will get roughly £5m. People will be like, ‘Wow, £5m!?’ but in reality they’ve saved everybody millions of pounds by doing that.
“And that’s the role of the agent, beyond looking after the player’s everyday life, that’s what it has come to.”
Saido Berahino wasn't mentioned, but it is thought to be about him. For me though, the suggestion of a £20m tribunal fee is way off mark. The biggest they have awarded is £8m for Danny Ings who was a better player than Berahino is now. He seems to have done everything he can to lower his fee and he doesn't seem to want WBA to get much for him.
With his contract up in the summer he is only worth £5m now, but it may be that WBA are relying on more from a tribunal. Tony Pulis still wants him to sign another contract. It is all still seems rather messy.
1 comment