Allan Saint-Maximin (now playing for Fenerbahce, on loan from Al-Ahli)

[Unbelievable]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I'm just throwing out reasons why £25m is even being mentioned as a fee. That's the sort of figure I would expect from a normal club outside of the Saudi Pro League. Then factor in we would expect to be under far more scrutiny than Liverpool or Chelsea on such deals because of who our owners are.

Why should we sell ourselves short to prevent scrutiny?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

4 minutes ago, TRon said:

I'm just throwing out reasons why £25m is even being mentioned as a fee. That's the sort of figure I would expect from a normal club outside of the Saudi Pro League. Then factor in we would expect to be under far more scrutiny than Liverpool or Chelsea on such deals because of who our owners are.

 

Is there any mechanism to scrutinise transfer fees for players you sell? Or you just mean for PR reasons?

[TheBrownBottle]

8 minutes ago, Unbelievable said:

Why would that make it difficult to sell to another club for a higher fee? Is there any precedent for a league not allowing an outgoing transfer because the fee was higher than someone else’s lowball offer? I think people are confusing the fair market value rules for commercial deals with transfer revenue where there are no such rules.

 

We’d better get >50m

We’ll get £50m+ for players worth £50m+
 

ASM is clearly available.  So we can look forward to all that bidding for the lad. 
 

And if there isn’t a bidding war, then there’s your actual value. 

[TRon]

Just now, Unbelievable said:

Why should we sell ourselves short to prevent scrutiny?

 

Well I'd prefer not to, personally I hope we get £70m. I'm just speculating why such a low figure has even been mentioned.

[r0cafella]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

Is there any mechanism to scrutinise transfer fees for players you sell? Or you just mean for PR reasons?

No mechanism as of now but given the history of our takeover you can bet your bottom dollar the league would be having another emergency meeting to make new rules to stop us. 

[TRon]

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

Is there any mechanism to scrutinise transfer fees for players you sell? Or you just mean for PR reasons?

 

See my above post. I have no idea if this figure of £25m is even true, I'm just trying to figure out why we would accept it assuming it is.

[black_n_white]

Not fussed, I trust the club know what they are doing 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

1 minute ago, r0cafella said:

No mechanism as of now but given the history of our takeover you can bet your bottom dollar the league would be having another emergency meeting to make new rules to stop us. 

 

I mean, I understand the point but they definitely couldn't. Not unless we sold him for something silly like £150m. Every club is selling dead wood to the Saudis. 

[kocunar]

I know people will call this panicky, but hear me out. It does sound worrying if they are trying to lowball us.

 

Now of course, it could all be just media nonsense and the fee could have been already agreed and this is all for show.

 

But if we really do end up selling him for something like £25m, it means we could be more in danger of Saudis than anyone.  First of all, you will say that they are just doing what any club should do in trying to get as low a price possible. But we are both owned by PIF so they don't lose any money transfering from one of their property to another, no matter the transfer fee. Their goal should be, and there is no logical reason for any other, to get us as big of a transfer fee without it being suspicious. Because their clubs aren't restricted by FFP and we are.

Again, this could all be media nonsense and they are doing exactly that. But if it ends up being a really low fee, it could mean that all their priority is getting as many players possible to the Saudi League and any other goal is miniscule by comparison. What is to stop them from offering Bruno G. £50m a season to come to Saudi Arabia and us selling him for £50m? He would probably say no, but we are the only club in the world where it is only player's wishes, we have no power to say no as a club.

Just to make it clear, I don't think this is true, because it wouldn't make sense to lower the value of your property (us as a club), but a really low fee for ASM could be a very bad sign.

[r0cafella]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

I mean, I understand the point but they definitely couldn't. Not unless we sold him for something silly like £150m. Every club is selling dead wood to the Saudis. 

They can do whatever they please, look how they blocked our takeover with no regard, or how suddenly sponsorship rules were created. 
 

Unless challenged legally they can do as they please. 

[TheBrownBottle]

Just now, AyeDubbleYoo said:

 

I mean, I understand the point but they definitely couldn't. Not unless we sold him for something silly like £150m. Every club is selling dead wood to the Saudis. 

Neves and Diaby aren’t deadwood tbf

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I think that's generally a worry no matter what the ASM fee is. If KSA decide to really go for it they could have the richest league in the world in a few years. Which will obviously lead to lots of PL players going there. 

 

Not that it necessarily matters since we can just bring in replacements from Europe, but the PL could end up second. 

[TRon]

Just now, r0cafella said:

They can do whatever they please, look how they blocked our takeover with no regard, or how suddenly sponsorship rules were created. 
 

Unless challenged legally they can do as they please. 

 

Yep, their rules are fixed in such a way they have right to put whatever interpretation of them they like. Only the threat of legal action wrt fair trade and such makes them back off ultimately.

[Unbelievable]

3 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We’ll get £50m+ for players worth £50m+
 

ASM is clearly available.  So we can look forward to all that bidding for the lad. 
 

And if there isn’t a bidding war, then there’s your actual value. 

He’s worth more to us than 25m, so if that’s what we would get I simply wouldn’t sell. We have SA clubs bidding though, owned by the same owners as ours, so the fee could be anything that works out best for PIF. If that is below what I consider ASM’s value to NUFC it would raise a massive red flag about our project and its role in the greater scheme of things for PIF/SA.

[kocunar]

Just now, Unbelievable said:

He’s worth more to us than 25m, so if that’s what we would get I simply wouldn’t sell. We have SA clubs bidding though, owned by the same owners as ours, so the fee could be anything that works out best for PIF. If that is below what I consider ASM’s value to NUFC it would raise a massive red flag about our project and its role in the greater scheme of things for PIF/SA.

Yep, there is a big difference between being the Saudi Man City, and being Saudi RB Salzburg to their Saudi Pro League RB Leipzig.

[GeordieDazzler]

The PL won’t end up second man, people aren’t getting up at 3am to watch Al Hilal take on Atletico Jeddah. It’s a bloated vanity project and no amount of signings are going to change that. 

 

[Kid Icarus]

6 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

We’ll get £50m+ for players worth £50m+
 

ASM is clearly available.  So we can look forward to all that bidding for the lad. 
 

And if there isn’t a bidding war, then there’s your actual value. 

Bidding wars don't dictate value like, the asking price of the selling club and the price clubs are willing to pay dictate it more often than not.

[ponsaelius]

I love Maxi, he's been a fantastic player to watch for us IMO over the last few years, and I'm honestly gutted he won't get to play CL football for us.

 

All that being said I do think there is a clear logic to selling him right now. Playing style is an imperfect fit, there are definitely injury/fitness issues and this is probably the best time to get a good fee for him.

 

There's an argument that we're losing a player who offers something different/a wildcard, and replacing him with a player who is another system player, and that's a loss to the squad. Equally though I've always found Maxi to be a poor impact sub and somebody who needs to start games to be effective - which I think lessens that argument.

[Unbelievable]

5 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

They can do whatever they please, look how they blocked our takeover with no regard, or how suddenly sponsorship rules were created. 
 

Unless challenged legally they can do as they please. 

They can’t retrospectively apply rules that weren’t even inexistence at the time though, especially given other PL clubs have gladly shifted their deadwood to SA.

[r0cafella]

Just now, kocunar said:

Yep, there is a big difference between being the Saudi Man City, and being Saudi RB Salzburg to their Saudi Pro League RB Leipzig.

Ok

 

if this was even remotely true I somehow doubt the fist choice of players they could pick would be ASM. 

 

Let’s be clear here the Saudi league Is a career grave yard and will remain so no matter how much they spend. 

[r0cafella]

Just now, Unbelievable said:

They can’t retrospectively apply rules that weren’t even inexistence at the time though, especially given other PL clubs have gladly shifted their deadwood to SA.

Indeed they can’t so we would get one hit and that would be it. 

[TRon]

1 minute ago, GeordieDazzler said:

The PL won’t end up second man, people aren’t getting up at 3am to watch Al Hilal take on Atletico Jeddah. It’s a bloated vanity project and no amount of signings are going to change that. 

 

 

Yeah this angle does make me look twice to see if I'm reading it right. I mean good luck to the Saudi League in their part of the world, I just can't see any way it would suddenly become a major draw over European leagues simply because of logistics. Not to mention small matters like football tradition and history. I think people are panicking a bit like.

[simonsays]

24 minutes ago, The Prophet said:

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/allan-saint-maximin-transfer-saudi-arabia-cash-newcastle-scrutiny-2488410

 

We want £40 million according to this.

 

They'll probably meet in the middle at £30 million to £35 million.

Smart move to play out the negotiations in public like this - trying to make out that a fee hasn't already been agreed and that negotiations are between two completely separate entities.  From the reactions on here the tactic seems to be working! 

[relámpago blanco]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

 

I'd heard Burns car had issues because no-one could make their mind up whether he was better suited to driving in the left hand lane, or the middle one.

I'm not making that up. Burn talked about it in an interview on NUFC.co.uk

[kocunar]

Well, if our owners are as capable as everyone thinks (and I think they are, everyone was clowning their overpriced fees for LIV Golf and they ended up basically owning the whole sport), then I wouldn't put it past them to make the Saudi Pro League work.