How much is Luke Young worth then ?

[Gulliball]

The best way to look at historical transfer fees is in comparison to the transfer fees of the time. In 1987 the world record fee was £6m for Ruud Gullit. Maradona went for £5m the year before. £180k back then is worth a hell of a lot more than £450k now, when the world record is £85m and several players are transferred for over £50m.

We received 3% of the world record transfer fee for Lee Sharpe, which was a lot of money for a club of our size. 3% of the current world record is £2.55m, so slightly more than Grimes has just gone for at £1.75m. That is the ballpark type of figure that Sharpe went for in modern money.

To make a decent transfer fee in today's game means selling to a Premiership side, which means selling a young player as they are the only one with a hope of making it in the Premiership. The fact that they can now be scouted, and signed for a pre-set level of compensation, like the £40k we received for losing a 15 year old to Southampton, means that even this last hope is pretty much gone. It would be cheaper for Swansea to sign 20 promising 15 year olds for £50k each than paying Exeter a fair fee for Grimes as a 19 year old - so that is the way they will go in the future. That's why the laws changed last year, to make that easier to the big money clubs.

Levi Ives had his head turned before he even made his second professional appearance and still legally a child. If we lose anyone making even the slightest ripple in youth football aged 14/15, and the opportunity of first team football isn't enough to persuade a promising 17 year old to stay then it's almost impossible for us to bring anyone through to the first team that has a shot of making it higher up in the game. They'll already have exited at one of the junctions created specifically for that purpose.

[hector]

I'm not sure that is the best way to look at it, at all.

If £6m was the world record at a similar time that we paid £60,000 for Wes Saunders , then that is 1%. If we were to pay a 1% of the current world transfer fee now, then that is £850,000. That is just not realistic.

All that has happened is that the gap between the elite clubs and everyone else has widened so simply to say that £180,000 in 1988 is worth more than the actual £480,000 (or whatever it is now) because of who is paying it, or because of the context super-rich clubs exist in, doesn't follow. Most clubs are not super-rich and therefore do not pay the sorts of fees that only the very elite clubs (and we are probably talking about ten clubs at the most) pay. The rest of the football world - exist somewhat differently.

While the top clubs have gone off the planet in terms of income and expenditure, the same is not true of the rest of the teams in the rest of the divisions - they have probably followed the more normal inflation tack. For Torquay to pay even £25,000 now would be a big deal, even though we did it in 1980.

[Gulliball]

I might not have explained it extensively, but the concept of looking at transfer fees in relation to the world record at the time comes from the book 'Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era' by Paul Tomkins. At full length, it's a very useful concept to compare spending patterns in different eras at Premier League level.

The main reason that doesn't work so well at our level is that 4th division sides spend what they have available. We were able to spend £70k on Billy Bodin recently because we had just received fees of £600k that summer, as well as a £50k donation. If Bodin had moved to Crewe instead, we likely wouldn't have spent anything in transfer fees - it was Bodin or no-one, not a case of having a transfer budget of £70k and buying the best player available for that price, as the Premiership sides do.

Manchester United could buy a player for £500m if they really wanted to, it is their (and every other top division side's) policy not to do that as there is no player worth that. The reason why the top end players go for the fees they do is because it is the balance point between the money available and what both sides feel the player is worth. If Gareth Bake is priced too highly then they can go out and buy a different player for a slightly smaller fee. In 1988 they made us an offer based on the value of players at that time, which is why the footballing context at that time is significant and not inflation.

£60k for Wes Saunders is a lot of money, but we obviously had it at the time, and so spent it because there was a good player available at that price. In all likelihood without Lee Sharpe bringing in £180k 18 months earlier, we would not have spent £60k on Wes Saunders, just like we wouldn't have signed Bodin without selling O'Kane and Olejnik.

[Dave]

Luke Young is worth what somebody is prepared to pay for him and what Torquay are prepared to accept. Would be very surprised if it ends up being more than £100,000 because of the fact that he didn't set the world alight in League 2 last season and this season he is in the Conference. Many clubs will look at that and think that he is not good enough for League 2 but too good for the Conference. I actually think that midfield .

You're right a footballer is only worth what a potential buying club is prepared to pay. But as I tried to convince sunnysideup through debate, not argument, Luke Young's career stats at Plymouth are meaningless to his value now, his career stats at Plymouth fall into the 'damn lies and statistics' category, as far as I can see at least 45% were from the substitutes bench, there's no way of telling how many of the 55% of the games Luke Young started did he actually play the full 90 minutes.

Put simply if a player comes of the bench 90 times and plays 10 minutes each time, his career stats will show an impressive 90 appearances, but, in reality that player would have only played 1 full football match with in those 90 appearances, and that's what I'm getting at here.

Also what has to be remembered , there were well documented financial troubles at Plymouth, something that forced them as a club to ditch expensive first team players and promote players up from their youth team, and players on the fringes of the first team, Luke Young was one of those very, very young players thrust into first team action perhaps well before he was truly ready. Only now, for the first time in Luke Young's career is he enjoying a proper run of first team match's x the full 90 minutes.

[Dave]

There's some very good points made along this thread. I had forgotten Matt Grimes had got into the England U20 squad, that of course would inflate his value as a player, and yes there isn't as much money through out football today as there was 20 years ago, so to say it's only cash rich premiership clubs paying out top fee's is indeed a good point.

Posters who suggest Luke Young's valuation as a player is probably only around the £100k mark, are not to far wide of the mark I suspect, I really am not disagreeing with them. The point I'm trying to make, it's about the art of negotiation, I look at Barry Fry, there's a man who is probably capable of persuading a family of Eskimos to pay double the market value for a tonne of ice they already own, if Barry Fry was at Torquay would he get more than £100k for LY's services, yes, he would.

It's about squeezing every last penny out of a potential buying club, I'm not saying the club will make the decision to sell Luke Young this January, they might not get any offers, and I certainly do not think this January is the right for the club to sell LY. But if serious enquires for LY are received and our club does decide to sell, can they get more than £100k yes they can, if a potential buying club really wants the player, they'll pay over the market value, if they don't, they wont pay it, and we should keep the player, as at this point in LY's contract the club has full ownership of his registration.

[IlshamSchmilsham]

Without wishing to further muddy the waters surrounding this fascinating debate, comparing historical transfer fees with today's values must be complicated by the very different contractual status of players in the modern game. Post-Bosman (i.e. since 1995)clubs can only secure a player's services for a mutually agreed, limited period. In times past once a club registered a player he remained theirs until they decided to dispense with his services, with the club retaining all of the "equity" that the player's registration represented. In today's footballing world the value (to the club) of any player purchased for a fee can also decline rapidly the closer he gets to the end of the contractual period. Grimes's fee of £1.75m guarantees Swansea his services for just 4.5 years, which means that the "unit cost of the product" (i.e. £s per season) is considerably higher than for a player purchased in the pre-Bosman era, whatever the inflation measure deployed. So, for example, Manchester United's investment in Lee Sharpe's potential probably represented considerably less in cash terms than Swansea have spent on Matt Grimes (although the financial means of clubs in the top tier have, of course, increased exponentially during the intervening period).

[hector]

Without wishing to further muddy the waters surrounding this fascinating debate, comparing historical transfer fees with today's values must be complicated by the very different contractual status of players in the modern game. Post-Bosman (i.e. since 1995)clubs can only secure a player's services for a mutually agreed, limited period. In times past once a club registered a player he remained theirs until they decided to dispense with his services, with the club retaining all of the "equity" that the player's registration represented. In today's footballing world the value (to the club) of any player purchased for a fee can also decline rapidly the closer he gets to the end of the contractual period. Grimes's fee of £1.75m guarantees Swansea his services for just 4.5 years, which means that the "unit cost of the product" (i.e. £s per season) is considerably higher than for a player purchased in the pre-Bosman era, whatever the inflation measure deployed. So, for example, Manchester United's investment in Lee Sharpe's potential probably represented considerably less in cash terms than Swansea have spent on Matt Grimes (although the financial means of clubs in the top tier have, of course, increased exponentially during the intervening period).

That is a fascinating and very significant aspect that does bear consideration. I remember at the time of Bosman thinking the era of clubs paying transfer fees was dead and that all the money would go to the players, because as you point out, who would pay millions of pounds for a player who could walk away for nothing at the end of his contract? But clubs did - I suppose as compensation for breaking a contract.

It would have been the old-fashioned 'tribunal' that would have decided fees when a player was out of contract pre-Bosman. I think the club who owned the players registration, only had to offer a salary that matched their current one to therefore retain their registration and therefore be entitled to a transfer fee of some sort once that player decided to leave.

[hector]

I might not have explained it extensively, but the concept of looking at transfer fees in relation to the world record at the time comes from the book 'Pay As You Play: The True Price of Success in the Premier League Era' by Paul Tomkins. At full length, it's a very useful concept to compare spending patterns in different eras at Premier League level.

The main reason that doesn't work so well at our level is that 4th division sides spend what they have available. We were able to spend £70k on Billy Bodin recently because we had just received fees of £600k that summer, as well as a £50k donation. If Bodin had moved to Crewe instead, we likely wouldn't have spent anything in transfer fees - it was Bodin or no-one, not a case of having a transfer budget of £70k and buying the best player available for that price, as the Premiership sides do.

Manchester United could buy a player for £500m if they really wanted to, it is their (and every other top division side's) policy not to do that as there is no player worth that. The reason why the top end players go for the fees they do is because it is the balance point between the money available and what both sides feel the player is worth. If Gareth Bake is priced too highly then they can go out and buy a different player for a slightly smaller fee. In 1988 they made us an offer based on the value of players at that time, which is why the footballing context at that time is significant and not inflation.

£60k for Wes Saunders is a lot of money, but we obviously had it at the time, and so spent it because there was a good player available at that price. In all likelihood without Lee Sharpe bringing in £180k 18 months earlier, we would not have spent £60k on Wes Saunders, just like we wouldn't have signed Bodin without selling O'Kane and Olejnik.

Anyway, in 'the price of bread' terms, the £60K we paid for Wes Saunders in 1990 was more than the £75K we paid for Leon Constantine in 2004.

I think the Wes money came from Mike Bateson rather than Lee Sharpe. MB had just taken over the club and was flashing the cash by signing Wes and also Tommy Tynan.

[tomogull]

Anyway, in 'the price of bread' terms, the £60K we paid for Wes Saunders in 1990 was more than the £75K we paid for Leon Constantine in 2004.

In the 'price of bread' terms, we certainly paid too much dough for Constantine .........

[tomogull]

I suspect the re-signing of Ryan Harley is the replacement for Matt Grimes.

I cannot see Exeter blowing a big chunk of their windfall on Luke Young, because 'IF' £200k is the mooted price, would they ever get that back if they signed him, especially if it was only a transfer embargo that prevented them getting him for free 6 months ago? Exeter's record fee paid is £65,000, 30 years ago for Tony Kellow - I don't think they are the sort of club who would spend that sort of money, that they would need to spend to sign Young.

That £1.75m will no doubt be used to safeguard their long-term future.

Perhaps you're right Hector, but since Harley's signing, both he and Grimes have been in the city starting eleven. It must be frustrating to Tisdale that he could have signed Luke Young for free if it had not been for the transfer embargo, but I suspect that he and the Grecian fans will expect some of the Swansea money to be made available to strengthen the team and £200,000 is a small fraction of that £1.75m. I don't think you can take the record fee of £65000 into account because they have never had a windfall like this before.

[friendlygas]

The big problem you have is that Luke Young is far and away your best player and in all honesty you as supporters will miss him more than amybody because you know that any money you get probably won't go on a replacement. The club will look on the money as a relief same as our Board did with lambert but football wise you just can't replace your best players with free transfers unless you are very lucky.
He looks a class player but you may be lucky and keep him because of the fact that he didn't shine in League 2 last year and because of that it is a risk that clubs may not be willing to take on a Conference player. I am sure you would all rather keep your star rather than have the money.

[tomogull]

The big problem you have is that Luke Young is far and away your best player and in all honesty you as supporters will miss him more than amybody because you know that any money you get probably won't go on a replacement. The club will look on the money as a relief same as our Board did with lambert but football wise you just can't replace your best players with free transfers unless you are very lucky.
He looks a class player but you may be lucky and keep him because of the fact that he didn't shine in League 2 last year and because of that it is a risk that clubs may not be willing to take on a Conference player. I am sure you would all rather keep your star rather than have the money.

Totally agree FG. He is of greater value to the team than the £150,000/£200,000 we would likely receive for him. I would add that most Argyle fans were very surprised that Sheridan released him so whether he could or could not hack it in Div 2 is debatable. Anyway, I hope he'll remain at Plainmoor to lead us back into the Div 2 promised land - if not this season, then next.

[brucie]

No way he will go to Exeter - they are just not going to shell out 200k on a player who was released for nothing six months ago.

[MidDevon]

Just a couple of points, firstly when a team receives a large transfer fee for a player it is rarely paid in one lump sum. Normally it is spread out over months, sometimes seasons.

many seem to be forgetting the reason Luke Young was released from Plymouth, essentially maturity.

CH has done a good job of investing in Young, making him captain, when perhaps he certainly not the most natural captain at the club, and helping him to, shall we put it "grow up".

If Young does move on, a move closer to home is much more likely IMO, Exeter would not surprise me wither, but any cash generated would, in my opinion, be more likely drip fed into the club.

[Trojan 67]

Lukey is here on "loan". In several or four seasons when football wise he's old enough and mature enough his "loan" will end and he'll go back to Argyle on a Bosman.

You read it here first. (a Stefano winkey -> )