Hermann Hreidarsson bought his house off Harry Redknapp when he moved to Pompey on a free transfer eighteen months ago.
Harry made a profit on the house of £450,000 in ten months.
Harry looks after his players.
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Oh the pleasure of watching multi-billionaire hyperowners, agents, super-agents, third party practitioners, managers and players exchanging multi-million pound contracts in a Depression.
But there are very Real signs that the boom is over.
Firstly, the main driver of the global football industry in a Depression is to be underground gambling money from the shadow betting markets. Betting turnover is down #% this season and fully ##% in the last three trading months. #################
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Secondly, the spectrum of transfer activity at the English clubs was very disturbing in the January Transfer Window (JTW). Take the Championship. The entire purchase total in the JTW was just £6.3 million (excluding hyperrich QPR who spent £2.5 million by themselves). The vast majority of the deals are loans with most of the rest free transfers. In the Premiership, the most obvious feature is how many players are being off-loaded by the clubs to reduce wage bills - 11 out of Chelsea and Tottenham, 10 out of West Ham, 9 at Fulham and Liverpool - for a variety of reasons, of course.
Thirdly, the total spend in League One was a mighty £200,000. League Two managed just one single paid transfer costing £80,000. The ScudamoreWorld view of this would be that these figures indicate that there is a trickle down effect financially in the English game.
Fourthly, the teams that are in financial distress exposed their degree of toxicity via their JTW endeavours. We have frequently focused on these teams over the last six months.
Portsmouth with a nett spend of -£29.4 million were the biggest disposer of assets. Liverpool at -£14.6 million helped to pay off some of the Hicks/Gillett debt to Wachovia/RBS and came in penultimate position, while Chelsea came in third bottom at -£12 million which had to be expected since Roman has lost 75% of his empire (paper assets or not) in the last 12 months. Newcastle were the next biggest self-harming asset strippers at -£9.9 million followed by West Ham United at -£9.0 million. Then come Fulham who, as we recently posted, purchased a pile of ###### at the top of the market in the summer, leading to a -£5.8 million nett spend and the farming out of as many wage earners as possible in the JTW.
Fifthly, the British pound has seen better days, and there are worse ones to come for the pound is being actively devalued by our rogues-in-office in order to make British exports more competitive. It is significant that there is no major European level deal in this window. The second tier purchases are hardly significant - Arshavin is overrated and Man City inevitably overpaid for de Jong. The other half dozen or so signings from Europe were in the £3-5 million category. The financial muscle of the self-styled "Biggest League In The World" is evidently flagging. This was clearly demonstrated by the Kaká farce.
Sixthly, the new Premiership television deals are to be announced this morning (ScudamoreWorld carefully choosing the day after the JTW in a further piece of gaming of the hyperreality). Our estimate would be that the figures will be in the same vicinity as the last round of negotiations due to the type of auction process that the Premier League (PL) has organised. We were naive not to expect that Our Great Leader would tilt the auction market in his and the PL's favour. The BBC have already agreed a £173 million three-year deal for the highlights package (an increase of 1% on the last deal ignoring inflation, so, in Reality, a reduction) and the channel has gained extra rights including internet rights in the deal.
Making the assumption that the figures are within +/-5% of the previous arrangement, the successful media companies are overpaying for the product. As all of the above together with the increasingly sharp turnaround in attendances (check out the number of empty seats at Arsenal versus West Ham at the weekend) would imply, the product is already significantly overvalued.
And that is before you start to factor in the negative impacts of the association of football with the gambling industry.
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A few other interesting aspects of the JTW are provided below.
* There would appear to be a power shift within the Abyss.
Tottenham were the top spenders at a nett +£47.8 million (bettered only by Abu Dhabi United's £50 million, Harry will be happy).
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Chelsea, as already stated were offloading their inventory. Abramovich wants out, we reckon. Chelsea's zenith came with John Terry's penalty miss in Moscow last May, although it hyperreally occurred when Mourinho walked out earlier in that season.
That £700 million debt that needs to be paid off in 18 months is going to be an entertaining diversion! And you thought West Ham were fucked!!
Which, of course, they are despite the hugely impressive Steve Clarke.
Check the breakpoints. West Ham were in financial and footballing freefall, in comes Clarke and the team massively overperform against a backdrop of murky chaos. Chelsea were the best team in the Premiership in the first third of the season. Then Sméagol arrived and the first home defeats since the Famine were followed by a decline in form that has been simply precipitous.
And, those crystals that Thaksin Shinawatra had buried at Eastlands didn't do any good, did they?
Richard Dunne keeps playing for the other team while Robinho's travelling and cruising are hardly indicative of a man on a mission. City, potentially but allegedly illegally, utilised Kia Joorabchian in their attempt to strip the image rights from the man who is Kaká. Apart from Shay Given, they have overpaid in their JTW activity and the Kaká affair will ensure that all future transfer targets will take that much more persuasion. The Economist reckons that sovereign wealth-funds would have to sell their overseas assets if the oil price were to fall to $25 - Brent Crude is currently trading at 44, less than one-third of its summer high.
Keith Harris who, despite attracting over 170 potential buyers, was unable to sell Newcastle United, or anybody else for that matter, has finally seen the light: "We're in the toughest economic situation anybody has endured in our lifetime and that means we are unlikely to see much activity on the football takeover scene. This is a wake-up call. The clubs have to realise that it is back to fundamental basics of managing their costs. We have been through a time when the clubs have been overspending, with ordinary players commanding huge transfer fees and wages... The climate has changed."
The Climate Is A Depression, Sir.
In the last two transfer windows, there has been an increase in the number of transfers that are labelled "Undisclosed". Why is this allowed?
We should be made aware of the fullest possible details of all transfer activity. The market must be made transparent rather than exist in its current murky opacity.
We should be told which agents are representing which players in which deals.
We should be told which agents are working with the clubs, both on a consultative and permanent basis as well as on one-off deals.
We should be told about the role, if any, of additional super-agents.
We should be made aware of any selling-on deals or other contortions of contract.
This will not stamp out the "under-the-table" payments - the game is far too far gone for that - but it will stop players being duped by agents acting against their interests on behalf of the buying or selling club.
When the sums of money were more moderate, this did not matter so much financially.
But the percentage takes on the Kaká deal would have been something else entirely.
This must be better regulated.
Thank goodness that we know that we are able to rely on Our Great Leader to rectify the infrastructure.
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The Worst Missed Opportunity? Manchester United refusing to take a lead from Abu Dhabi United, and talk with Mr Joorabchian about signing up Carlos Tevez. Overpay, its worth it as he's only 24. Sign him up, Sir...
Also, it will further embarrass Our Great Leader to have the 3rd party agreement duplicities aired again in the public space.
"... A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House, A Harry Redknapp House..."
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