2017 Summer Transfers Rumors and Confirmations

Zososoxfan

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So what's the story on Aubemayang? one would think he would be a pretty high demand player? Rumour had him going to China at one point.

Now it seems his agent is offering him around Europe.
He's not young and fairly or not, is considered a wing player more suited to hitting on the counter than breaking down a compact defense. Thus, this reduces his attractiveness to the major clubs. Normally, this is where an astute Serie A club swoops in, but I think Dortmund are in a better financial position than most of those clubs. Honestly though, none of those outcomes would surprise me.
 

Schnerres

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They could sell Aubameyang to China, but I read in a kicker report about Leverkusens Kevin Kampl (former Leverkusen coach Roger Schmidt is now coaching in China and wants him badly) that Chinese clubs have to pay a transfer penalty which is the exact sum of the transfer sum and Leverkusen doesn´t want to deal with the creative tricks of the possible Kampl transfer (whatever that meant; possibly delaying the payments to lower the penalty, I don´t know).

So after the 3week layoff (he signed with us; we don´t want him; I want to move to China!; You´re not training with us anymore, clear your head before you move to China!; I want to participate in Cologne´s training, and I will go to court with that!; finally all parties agreed to a 35mil-€-transfer), Tony Modeste moves to China. Leverkusen seems to stay away from that problem (China´s transfer deadline is tomorrow, Friday) and Dortmund doesn´t even talk about that location, as the money would be insane.
So there isn´t much left for Aubameyang. And as someone said before, he isn´t a versatile player. He can finish crosses and can finish off the dribble and counters. I don´t see age as a problem, when you look around Europe and the money spent (think last year for Higuain). So the biggest downer for me is that he isn´t a back-to-goal player, which you probably need or at least want in many big clubs which are dominating possession, at least in theory. This would probably all play out better than expected I guess. But he´s no Lewandowski as a CF. Dortmunds system suits him just perfect. I doubt he will score 30 league goals at PSG or Chelsea, even as the central point of their offense.
If he doesn´t like new coach Bosz or what he has seen in training/preseason (like if he tried to install a passheavy 70% possession, which I doubt he will), then he wants to be gone. But Dortmund would have a ton of trouble to replace his productivity and experience, as Reus and Guerreiro are (again) injured for months, so they should be reluctant to do anything.
 

Zomp

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City are rumored to be close to closing on two deals for left and right backs. Mendy and Walker...50 million each.

This market is crazy.
 

teddykgb

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I've never rated Walker much, I'll have to really adjust to find a way to think he's the greatest RB in the world. It is a crazy market.
 

Senator Donut

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According to DiMarzio, Bonucci will move to Milan for EUR 40,000,000. Not sure I understand that one from Juve's perspective, but Milan's new owners are definitely looser on the purse strings than Berlusconi.

 

Vinho Tinto

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40 million for a 30 year old player who has been offered a pay raise is hard to turn down. You turn it down, you have to rip up his contract and give him a pay hike. Juve has a bigger budget than before, but everyone has a cap.

For Milan, it's a great psychological blow to a direct rival.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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I've heard rumors that Bonucci and Allegri had a massive blow out, making him continuing at Juve impossible. But he didn't want to move abroad for family reasons do Milan is the most sensible alternative.

I welcome the (seemingly likely) rebirth of Milan. They are one of the great clubs and it will be fun to see them frisky again.
 

SocrManiac

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Devestated to see Bonucci leave. He’s one of the best central defenders in the world with a talent for making inch-perfect 60 yard passes. He’ll be sorely missed.

This breaks up Italy’s back line as well.
 

Schnerres

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-Sven Bender from Dortmund to Leverkusen for 15mil.€ (re-united with twin brother Lars)
-Serge Gnabry (sold to Bayern a few weeks ago from Bremen) loaned to Hoffenheim for a year. Bayern´s Rummenigge said that Gnabry wanted another season with another club to secure more playing time and Hoffenheim (either CL or Europa League) should offer him that. Good move.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Lucas to Lazio for £5m. Godspeed.

Keita left out of RBL's friendly amid news of an improved bid from Liverpool's previous £57m
 

Cellar-Door

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Crazy day for WH rumors, Joe Hart loan appears done, legit sources saying that Chicharito and Arnautovic expected to get done in the next few days.
Then....today a bunch of people saying that Lazio has agreed to a fee for Keita Balde.

Nothing for weeks then all at once splashing cash.
 

Vinho Tinto

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A report in Brazil has Neymar agreeing to terms with PSG and that the club will pay his release clause. To offset some of the doubling of the world record transfer fee, BR has the clubs swapping Andre Gomes and 65 million EUR for Marco Verrati
 

Zososoxfan

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I'm probably in the minority, but I would swap Ney+Gomes for Verratti+cash in a heartbeat (or more simply, Ney for Verratti+cash). Ney is obviously a young and awesome player, but Barca's wage structure is all over the place. As long as Messi is in the squad, whoever plays on the opposite wing will have to put in a defensive shift, and I bet Ney is getting pretty sick of that. He would be the first banana at PSG (and really almost anywhere else in the world) and could have the team built around him. I really don't think Messi's prime is over, or at least I think he could be an excellent traditional #10. He will need 2-3 targets in front of him, but his vision, passing skills, and shooting are not going anywhere.
 

Vinho Tinto

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So this Neymar to PSG may actually happen, huh? That would be fascinating.
I thought the comments from Robert Fernandez were delusional and seemed to drive home Teddy's FFP critique. A deal for Neymar is greater than just signing a left side forward. It's to sign one of the world's famous athletes. For a club with PSG's backing and ambition, this looked logical to me. They don't want to be restricted to their league's level. Neymar wants to reenter the discussion for world's best player.
 

teddykgb

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In addition to Walker, City have now officially signed Danilo from Real Madrid and Mendy from Monaco. Which is nice, because the team has needed to replace the full backs for probably 3 seasons now.
 

NickEsasky

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In addition to Walker, City have now officially signed Danilo from Real Madrid and Mendy from Monaco. Which is nice, because the team has needed to replace the full backs for probably 3 seasons now.
Nice to seem them spend some of those billions on the back line.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Weird day so far

  • Naby Keita was involved in a (thoroughly polite) training ground dust-up after exchanging hard tackles with Diego Demme - video and cringe-worthy makeup video
  • Everton's £45m bid for Gylfi Sigurdsson has been rejected by Swansea, per Jim White
  • Virgil Van Dijk has been left out of Southampton's 25 man squad traveling to France for some friendlies
  • Bernardeschi to Juventus is official - Fiorentina fans are less than thrilled at this
 

McBride11

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The Neymar money to PSG is insane. These oil rich owners are doing some wild things to the money structure.

I have basically seen either a 4 or 6 yr contract at ~30m / yr. Then there is a 200m buyout.

The buyout alone more than doubles Pogbas buyout (previous richest at 90m) Both are top 5 (top 10? Players) but not #1 or 2.

Call it a 5 year contract and they are roughly paying 70m/ yr for Neymar.

Mind boggling numbers
 

bosox4283

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The Neymar money to PSG is insane. These oil rich owners are doing some wild things to the money structure.

I have basically seen either a 4 or 6 yr contract at ~30m / yr. Then there is a 200m buyout.

The buyout alone more than doubles Pogbas buyout (previous richest at 90m) Both are top 5 (top 10? Players) but not #1 or 2.

Call it a 5 year contract and they are roughly paying 70m/ yr for Neymar.

Mind boggling numbers
Spanish papers are reporting today that Neymar and his team are insisting on PSG making a few key signings and keeping a few players. Apparently, Dani Alves was the first person: he and Neymar are friends, and the last-minute switch from ManCity to PSG fuels these transfer-rumor flames. The reports indicate Team Neymar wants PSG to sign Coutinho and retain Lucas Moura.
 

McBride11

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If the Neymar saga hasn't blown your mind yet, take a lithium and ponder Mbappe to Real for €180m.
Didnt have enough lithium when I saw that earlier.
What confused me is why did Real take 58m for their home grown striker in Morata and then possibly shell out 180m for the French Mbappe. Admittedly I have seen little of Mbappe but I dont think he is 2-3x as good as Morata.
 

SocrManiac

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Don't know what to make of the Coutinho to Barca rumors (). I don't see LFC being motivated to sell. Coutinho has consistently been worth the theft of several points per season with his right-footed curler. He's probably guilty of breaking more than his share of attacks down trying it from bad places, too. With CL, I think LFC need to hang on to him at virtually all costs, unless his sale is needed to free up the funds for a world-class CDM (Keita?).
 

67YAZ

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Don't know what to make of the Coutinho to Barca rumors (). I don't see LFC being motivated to sell. Coutinho has consistently been worth the theft of several points per season with his right-footed curler. He's probably guilty of breaking more than his share of attacks down trying it from bad places, too. With CL, I think LFC need to hang on to him at virtually all costs, unless his sale is needed to free up the funds for a world-class CDM (Keita?).
If rumors are to be believed, LFC has already upped their Keita bid to €80m, so I don't think they need to move Coutinho to spend.

Coutinho plays a huge role in the current set up. Over the years, Klopp has increasingly incorporated long shots into the attack as a necessary counter to teams trying to crowd the box. On the current roster, that job largely falls on Coutinho. He averaged 2 long range efforts per game last season. The next best total in over 1000 minutes came from Firmino & Wijnaldum, both at .9 per game. And neither of those guys are as dangerous at it as a Coutinho.

Moving Coutinho now means wading into the market pretty late to try to find a replacement (Insigne, Sigurdsson, or Lijajic - just spitballing). Given 'Pool's rocky summer so far, is anyone confident of securing an adequate fill in, never mind an upgrade?
 

swiftaw

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So apparently La Liga refused to accept the release clause fee when PSG showed up to pay it.
 

ninjacornelius

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The La Liga grapes seem rather sour.
This has the potential to become a nasty and protracted legal battle. If I understand correctly, by rule La Liga makes the players themselves pay their release clause fees. If La Liga isn't waiving this rule for Neymar, then PSG has to give the release clause money to Neymar, who then gives it to Barca. BUT, then PSG needs to add enough money to Neymar's bank account to cover the taxes on this release clause fee "income," and the upper marginal income tax rate in France is 45%. So it'd basically be adding another HUNDRED MILLION EUROS to the transfer fee.
 

Snoop Soxy Dogg

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This has the potential to become a nasty and protracted legal battle. If I understand correctly, by rule La Liga makes the players themselves pay their release clause fees. If La Liga isn't waiving this rule for Neymar, then PSG has to give the release clause money to Neymar, who then gives it to Barca. BUT, then PSG needs to add enough money to Neymar's bank account to cover the taxes on this release clause fee "income," and the upper marginal income tax rate in France is 45%. So it'd basically be adding another HUNDRED MILLION EUROS to the transfer fee.
To which the Emir of Qatar says - "What, that's it? No problem".
 

67YAZ

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The Guardian reports that Neymar has signed on as an official spokesperson for Qatar 2022, so there's his backdoor payment option that also helps PSG with financial fair play (whatever that's worth these days).

Guardian also reports that Neymar's father will split a €38m commission for brokering the deal...after having received over a €100m in payments from Barca over the years. Has any sports dad ever made out better? Lavar Ball has a long way to catch up.
 

McBride11

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The Guardian reports that Neymar has signed on as an official spokesperson for Qatar 2022, so there's his backdoor payment option that also helps PSG with financial fair play (whatever that's worth these days).

Guardian also reports that Neymar's father will split a €38m commission for brokering the deal...after having received over a €100m in payments from Barca over the years. Has any sports dad ever made out better? Lavar Ball has a long way to catch up.
Uhh Lavar is going for 3 billion?? Millions are peanuts.

This still blows my mind. The money involved is absurd. Also the Qatar spokesperson thing.

But what does La Liga turning down the transfer fee mean? Will Neymar be held out of training?
 

Zososoxfan

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No, this is pretty clear for the time being. Neymar is a PSG player. This is like negotiating with the State of Carolina in terms of GDP. Lots of $$$$ for these Qataris with [even] less oversight.
 

soxfan121

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Uhh Lavar is going for 3 billion?? Millions are peanuts.

This still blows my mind. The money involved is absurd. Also the Qatar spokesperson thing.

But what does La Liga turning down the transfer fee mean? Will Neymar be held out of training?
You understand the difference between aspirational bullshit and actual earnings, right? Neymar Sr. has a big lead. Let's see if anyone buys LaVar's bullshit in a year.

La Liga turning down the transfer means FIFA will overrule them in a few days, if not sooner, and tell them to STFU. There's no way for the league to stop this train from rolling to Paris. And yeah, the money is unbelievable - until you look at just how much value/revenue the player can create; Messi has been worth all the money: he remains underpaid at 100 million Euro a season and his value to Barca yearly is probably somewhere near California's GDP. Players everywhere, in every sport, remain criminally underpaid based on what they generate for their clubs.

Mookie Betts is probably underpaid by 250 million dollars thus far in his career, and it'll get bigger every year no matter how big an extension he signs down the line.
 

coremiller

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You understand the difference between aspirational bullshit and actual earnings, right? Neymar Sr. has a big lead. Let's see if anyone buys LaVar's bullshit in a year.

La Liga turning down the transfer means FIFA will overrule them in a few days, if not sooner, and tell them to STFU. There's no way for the league to stop this train from rolling to Paris. And yeah, the money is unbelievable - until you look at just how much value/revenue the player can create; Messi has been worth all the money: he remains underpaid at 100 million Euro a season and his value to Barca yearly is probably somewhere near California's GDP. Players everywhere, in every sport, remain criminally underpaid based on what they generate for their clubs.

Mookie Betts is probably underpaid by 250 million dollars thus far in his career, and it'll get bigger every year no matter how big an extension he signs down the line.
Soccer players are much less underpaid than players in other sports, because the market is freer. Teams/leagues have a lot less leverage because there are other teams/leagues they can't control.

Mookie Betts is underpaid because of the collective bargaining agreement, which in turn reflects the leverage MLB has by virtue of its antitrust exemption that allows it to restrict the bidders for players. There's no comparable situation in world football. If you think soccer players are underpaid, what is the market structure mechanism causing that?

If anything, I suspect the top soccer players are overpaid, both for winner's curse reasons and because they have become status objects, where price is disconnected from fundamentals. I would love to see the model that predicts Neymar will generate 450m in value (in terms of marginal revenue and/or increasing the club's valuation, which are really two sides of the same coin) for PSG over the next five years.
 

Dummy Hoy

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James "AC Jimbo" Richardson and Ben "Producer Ben" Green are out at Guardian Football Weekly and starting their own podcast. Max Rushden to take over for Richardson.

I'm always glad to have more options for listening, but I hope this doesn't split up and water down the talent too much.
 

soxfan121

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I would love to see the model that predicts Neymar will generate 450m in value (in terms of marginal revenue and/or increasing the club's valuation, which are really two sides of the same coin) for PSG over the next five years.
Win the Champions League? Twice?
 

coremiller

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Win the Champions League? Twice?
You have to value the signing, not on the value of that outcome, but on the basis of how much Neymar marginally improves the likelihood of that outcome. If Neymar increases the likelihood of PSG winning two Champions Leagues by 10% (a number that I think is waaay too high, but we'll work with it), then two CL wins would have to be worth 4.5 BILLION euros to the club. Which is nonsense. Real Madrid just won the CL twice, and 3 of the last 4, and the club as a whole probably isn't worth 4.5 billion euros total, let alone 4.5 billion euros more than before they won the CL twice.
 

soxfan121

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I'm not following you or the math; first you said 450M, then 4.5B.

FWIW, Forbes valued RM at 3.58B in 2017. PSG was at 841M on the same list. And RM posted 307M in 15-16 CL earnings.

So, maybe 450M is a little high, but its in the ballpark.
 

Vinho Tinto

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Neymar is in the shortlist for most popular athletes in the world. And this is especially true in Asia. PSG isn't interested in having their economics dictated by where they play domestically.They want their crest to be as easy to identify all around the world as Real's and Barca's. They took a great step to making that happen this week. I'd bet that in 20 years that we will look at his transfer as an economic bargain vs flop.
 

Morgan's Magic Snowplow

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In this case, valuing Neymar is really really difficult because he is being partly signed to be an ambassador for Qatar and the World Cup. By some estimates, Qatar could spend over 200 billion dollars (!!!) on a World Cup that is in danger of becoming a public relations disaster, if it isn't already. That's insane but it's a sunk cost. The World Cup is basically a massive infrastructure project and PR campaign whose success is central to the country's future. So is it worth it to spend another few hundred million to get one of the world's most popular athletes to be the personal face of that World Cup? I don't know. Maybe?
 
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