Re: Serie A Thread - 2012/13 Season
btw. lo zio Miccoli was on stadium yesterday , now that Palermo its on Serie b and if Lecce make it to Serie b too is there a chance he plays for Lecce ?
yeah that is definitely a possibility. miccoli always said he wanted to end his carreer at either palermo or lecce, so i could certainly see this happening now.
not because we're in serie b though (miccoli already made it clear that playing in serie b is not a problem for him and he wouldn't even mind a salary cut), but because zamparini is desperately trying to get rid of him and his contract is about to expire.
Lo Zio, you seem to know a lot about the way football works in Italy. I was wondering if you could explain what the owning 50% of a player with another club is about....
co-ownership can be a very useful expedient to move players and share between 2 clubs the risks that come with a player transfer. more often than not buying or selling half of a player can be a preferable alternative to loaning.
the most talented youngsters often happen to be very expensive, as they're valued by their potential, rather than their actual current ability. therefore signing a youngster can be a huge risk; if the lad lives up to his reputation and develops into a great player, then u got yourself a bargain... otherwise, u'll end up having spent more money than the player's actual worth. and of course if the youngster comes form a different country, that's another risk-factor to consider.
so, in order to share the risks and mitigate the possible loss, 2 clubs agree to buy a single player together. that's what genoa and milan did with boateng. boateng never even wore a genoa shirt... and he was never supposed to. milan were worried boateng couldn't adapt and they didn't wanna commit themselves (financially) too much on such a risky investment. so they proposed genoa to buy the player together. genoa payed half boateng pricetag and the player moved to milan. one season after, boateng proved to be a very good player, who had no adaptation problems whatsoever, so milan and genoa renegotiated their deal; milan bought genoa's 50% of the player and, since the player proved himself greatly during that season, the rossoneri payed genoa twice the money genoa spent one year before.
end of the story; genoa made a pretty substantial capital gain in 1 single season (without moving a finger) while milan protected themselves against a potential bad investment...and even though they ended up paying genoa quite a lot, they certainly didn't mind, as the player proved to be a good asset to the team.
sometimes instead a co-ownership deal can be a good expedient to allow a youngster to grow in experience.
giovinco struggled to get some decent playtime in his first season as a first squad player. so in 2010 juve stroke a deal with parma. juve wanted to loan the player but parma weren't happy with the offer. "
what's in it for us?" they asked. "
why should we develop your player for free and give him playtime at our club, only to see moving back to torino in 1 or 2 seasons? we have our own youngsters to develop and they could certainly use a spot in our first squad to improve.... so why should we give that spot to a player we don't own?"
so they eventually signed a different deal with juve; a 1 year loan with an option to buy the 50% of giovinco for 3 millions after 1 season. giovinco moved to parma and made an instant impact. he did great that season and got a chance to improve and get that playtime and experience he could have never gotten at juve. once the season ended parma exercised their option and bought 50% of giovinco for 3 millions (wich at that point was an amazing bargain). giovinco (wich was then not just a loaned player anymore but a co-owned player) remained at parma one more season and improved even more, eventually becoming "juventus material".
once his 2nd season at parma ended, juventus knocked on parma's door to bring the player back to torino and agreed to buy parma's 50% for 11 millions (more than 3 times what parma payed just one year before).
it was a perfect happy ending for everone involved: giovinco got a chance to get the playtime he needed to develop into a better player, parma got a chance to line up a high quality youngster for 2 seasons, spending only 3 millions... and eventually sold their 50% of giovinco for 11 millions (making it a 8 millions capital gain!); and as for juve they sent their talented youngster to a club with a history for nurturing talents and developing world class players, without risking to lose the player for good. sure they ended up paying 8 millions for "giovinco's internship at parma" (the 11 millions they eventually payed to parma, minus the 3 millions parma gave them the year before to buy 50% of giovinco), but it was worth it, as giovinco is worth at least twice that money now.
when it comes to sending youngsters to lesser clubs, a co-onweship deal is often preferable to a simple loan. a loan is for free (once the loan expires the player simply moves back home) but it doesn really motivate the other club to develop the youngster and give him playtime.
by closing a co-ownership deal instead u're giving the lesser club a very good reason to develop the youngster and not leave him on the bench (because if that youngster will improve during his spell at the lesser club, then the lesser club will get more money, once the big club decides to bring the kid back home).
theese 2 examples give u an idea of why co-ownership deals became so common in italy. as for your other question...
....and how it works if say they sell that player on to a third club in another country?
a co-owned player can't be sold to a third club. first the co-onwership must end, and only after that the player can be sold to a third party. that's what usually happens in theese cases.
let's say palermo and roma own 50% each of a player and milan wants to buy that player. milan will approach one of the 2 clubs (say, palermo) and tell them "we'd like to buy that player, how much would u ask for him?" at this point palermo will consider how much it would probably cost to buy roma's 50% of that player and then present milan with a proposal (as if the player were 100% owned by palermo).
if milan and palermo agree, then palermo will negotiate with roma and buy their 50%, and then sell the 100% of the player to milan for the ammount previously agreed. if the third club is a foreign one, there's no difference, as the procedure is usually the same.
