The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - 8th July 2017

[hutchiniho]

Add in apearance fee and cl bonus. He's not poorly paid.
Yes he could earn more at the mega clubs but he is still paid a decent wedge.

Oh yeah absolutely. Non of them are short of a penny. My point was purely base salary is the most important figure. The bonuses are good for incentives but are comparatively irrelevant.

But this is no longer on topic ITK so fingers crossed for a little weekend cyptic

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

@Led's Zeppelin The ITK from dragon1 sez:

Only element of truth is that levy is beyond a nightmare to deal with on transfers with other clubs certain chairman will not deal with him and certain interested parties in club will not deal with him either they go over him

Levy is not shy to do a re trade ,he did it in fact a year before buying the club to sugar who told him to go f**k himself and it took him a year before sugar would deal with him again ,

So dragon1 explicitly states that potential buyers (presumably of the club) will not deal with Levy, the implication being that they go over his head to Lewis.

It even gives the example of Sugar, who styles himself as a Business Maestro, refusing to deal with Levy for a year.

So the ITK says that Levy will seek to change the terms of a deal after both partires have agreed it (something apparently called "re trading") and that this has had real consequences with certain chairmen refusing to deal wtih him.

Yes, I read that too.

It doesn't actually contradict anything I've said, because it fits the pattern perfectly.

Of course there are some people who won't deal with him. That sort of thing is commonplace in these circles. Why do some clubs deal regularly with each other but not with other clubs? And what better reason can they give than slagging their opponent? That he's too tough a negotiator? He's obviously a very difficult man to deal with (I'd prefer someone else to do our transfer negotiations because I want to see more deals done, even if we overpay, but that;'s because I'm a supporter) but that is not the same as the charge of being dishonest, and I'd be very wary of using the football community as the arbiter in this sort of judgement.

Why has a law suit never been filed against him if that's the way he operates? It would be the easiest thing to do. How does he get so many high-level deals done if people who really know him believe he can't be trusted?

And I certainly would not take Sugar's interpretation of ethics and business practice as gospel. Yet again, it is vested interest speaking.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

anything going on in here today?

No.

 

[srups34]

20k a goal! I wonder who that is...obviously not Sissoko.

Lloris

 

[JerryGarcia]

hertyid on COYS:

Bale is not coming back.

This is a cryptic right?

 

[dagraham]

I try to look at the overall picture, If we had three or four ITKs saying Levys fucking things up and Poch hates him and only one ITK coming out saying it's not true then I'd go with the majority.
Agree with @Spurger King in that dragons info is pretty damn good.

Yeah I don't disagree with that.

However, even though the ITK seems to vary, the one consensus seems to be is Levy still playing silly buggers at the last minute on deals, which concerns me.

 

[yanno]

Yes, I read that too.

It doesn't actually contradict anything I've said, because it fits the pattern perfectly.

Of course there are some people who won't deal with him. That sort of thing is commonplace in these circles. Why do some clubs deal regularly with each other but not with other clubs? And what better reason can they give than slagging their opponent? That he's too tough a negotiator? He's obviously a very difficult man to deal with (I'd prefer someone else to do our transfer negotiations because I want to see more deals done, even if we overpay, but that;'s because I'm a supporter) but that is not the same as the charge of being dishonest, and I'd be very wary of using the football community as the arbiter in this sort of judgement.

Why has a law suit never been filed against him if that's the way he operates? It would be the easiest thing to do. How does he get so many high-level deals done if people who really know him believe he can't be trusted?

And I certainly would not take Sugar's interpretation of ethics and business practice as gospel. Yet again, it is vested interest speaking.

I hear all that but the ITK from a Levy-friendiy source which described the majority of The Goat's ITK as "bollocks" explicitly stated that Levy's "re trading", ie seeking to change the terms of a deal after both parties have agreed, has led to chairmen and other parties refusing to deal with him. It even named one such party.

My post "aka lying" was in response to the defintion of re trading as "when you agree a deal and then try to change the terms after agreeing, re-doing the trade."

Some people may believe this is legitimate business practice.

I disagree and believe it amounts to acting in bad faith. If you've shaken hands on a deal, you should honour it, unless you discover criminal or fraudulent elements during the due diligence.

 

[allatsea]

Yeah I don't disagree with that.

However, even though the ITK seems to vary, the one consensus seems to be is Levy still playing silly buggers at the last minute on deals, which concerns me.

See earlier posts re Levy's negotiating style. It is simply doing business in a business like way which most other business people understand. Unfortunately there are many in football who are there for the publicity and do not understand business.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

I hear all that but the ITK from a Levy-friendiy source which described the majority of The Goat's ITK as "bollocks" explicitly stated that Levy's "re trading", ie seeking to change the terms of a deal after both parties have agreed, has led to chairmen and other parties refusing to deal with him. It even named one such party.

My post "aka lying" was in response to the defintion of re trading as "when you agree a deal and then try to change the terms after agreeing, re-doing the trade."

Some people may believe this is legitimate business practice.

I disagree and believe it amounts to acting in bad faith. If you've shaken hands on a deal, you should honour it, unless you discover criminal or fraudulent elements during the due diligence.

I agree wholeheartedly. It is acting in bad faith. It is actually illegal. As in against the law.

But I don't believe it is actually what he does. I think it is other people not properly understanding what has been agreed in the first place. It is a common problem in business but especially in football. I've come across it countless times.

He's a stickler. He can be a bastard to deal with in a number of ways. He is exactly the sort of person Sugar and others can't handle. But he absolutely isn't, in my opinion, a crook of any kind.

 

[Lilbaz]

Oh yeah absolutely. Non of them are short of a penny. My point was purely base salary is the most important figure. The bonuses are good for incentives but are comparatively irrelevant.

But this is no longer on topic ITK so fingers crossed for a little weekend cyptic

Irrelevant? Kanes bonuses probably took him to close to £200k a week last season.

 

[yanno]

I agree wholeheartedly. It is acting in bad faith. It is actually illegal. As in against the law.

But I don't believe it is actually what he does. I think it is other people not properly understanding what has been agreed in the first place. It is a common problem in business but especially in football. I've come across it countless times.

He's a stickler. He can be a bastard to deal with in a number of ways. He is exactly the sort of person Sugar and others can't handle. But he absolutely isn't, in my opinion, a crook of any kind.

Okay, I hear all that, and respect your experience of having dealt with Levy directly.

However, there is still a major problem with dragon 1's ITK though in that it explictly states:

Levy is not shy to do a re trade

@Led's Zeppelin You may be correct that the problem is around both parties understanding what has actually been agreed, but the dragon 1 ITK goes further than that.

 

[hutchiniho]

Irrelevant? Kanes bonuses probably took him to close to £200k a week last season.

Exactly. At Utd he'd be on 200k as a base salary. Then he'd have goal, apps, CL bonuses on top of that.
Bonuses are nice, and add up to more than we'd earn in years sure but if a player was driven by money they wouldn't cut it. Base salary counts.
As I said, a full season of hard work and 30 goals for Kane would be equal to six weeks of base salary rise he'd get from moving to a club that doubles his 100k a week here.
(And that's before the bonuses they would offer).
So my point is that saying we offer massive bonuses to our top earners still is no where near what players could earn elsewhere.
Base salary is key.
In the world of the modern Prem player, What would you prefer 100k plus 20k a goal or 200k a week plus 10k a goal?
(For us the answer is Id play for 1k a week and be very happy with that! )
Thankfully Kane loves Spurs so money isn't his primary motivator atm.

But as I say, not ITK, so enough of this irrelevance

 

[Gb160]

Yeah I don't disagree with that.

However, even though the ITK seems to vary, the one consensus seems to be is Levy still playing silly buggers at the last minute on deals, which concerns me.

Fair point, but how else do u think we manage to sign high quality players for relatively low fees?

 

[WiganSpur]

I'd guess that on average, (please no posts highlighting other teams individual transfer sagas) we take significantly longer to complete deals compared to other clubs because of this re-trading talked about. It seems like quite a rare occurrence elsewhere in the football world and meddling whilst also pissing off the person on the other side of the table is likely to result in a lot more failures to land transfer targets.

I know people say look where we are now etc and there is an element of truth in that but who knows what would have happened if DL had managed to get even half of these failed deals over the line.

At the end of the day Poch has his preferred choices for a reason and it's difficult to argue that we wouldn't fare better if we got them most of the time instead of 5th/6th choice options. Whilst there is no guarantees of course it makes logical sense that the manager's preferred option would perform better than any alternative. It's completely understandable when a manager has failed to prove his worth but surely whilst MP may not be right all the time, he usually knows what is best for this squad.

 

[Jamturk]

Maybe the deals Levy seeks to change are deals that he hasn't negotiated himself personally?

 

[WiganSpur]

Maybe the deals Levy seeks to change are deals that he hasn't negotiated himself personally?

That wouldn't make any sense. Surely anyone acting on behalf of DL would keep him in the loop before anything got agreed for the first time. Reneging on a previous promise is a lot worse than being a tight arse before the agreement and surely we know that.

 

[Led's Zeppelin]

Okay, I hear all that, and respect your experience of having dealt with Levy directly.

However, there is still a major problem with dragon 1's ITK though in that it explictly states:

Levy is not shy to do a re trade

@Led's Zeppelin You may be correct that the problem is around both parties understanding what has actually been agreed, but the dragon 1 ITK goes further than that.

Well, all it does is assert that he "re-trades". It doesn't do more than that does it?

To be fair, the ITK can't prove that he does, not without taking him to court over it. Equally, I can't prove that he doesn't, but I believe I have logic on my side apart from my direct experience, which again to be fair needn't mean anything to anyone else.

And of course any potential buyer would want to deal with the majority shareholder rather than the minority, especially when the minority has a reputation for being a hard negotiator who probably refuses to listen to unsolicited bids in the first place. It feels to me that 2+2 is leading us in some interesting directions.

I really don't see anything in this of real substance.

 

[dagraham]

Fair point, but how else do u think we manage to sign high quality players for relatively low fees?

I think that's more down to being a hard negotiator, identifying players with not long left on their contract or at clubs who maybe need to sell, amongst other things.

I'm not sure it's about reneging on deals already agreed.

 

[stonebrow]

Yes really. Established ITK dismisses info as bollocks because its not what he heard. Saying "I haven't heard that" would be different, but lets be honest, dragon is the same as any other ITK in that they don't hear everything and they aren't right about everything.

If The Goat posts something, it's because we know who the source is, we've done our best to verify it and a lot goes on behind the scenes to check stuff out in as far as we can. So there's no anonymous sources and (exceptional circumstances not withstanding) The Goat does not just post info from people who we can't check out.

Why do recognised ITK's choose to use The Goat? Most appear happy to provide info good or bad so why stay anonymous? Are the Goat ITK's people who don't post ITK under their own name?

 

[Lilbaz]

Levy complicates deals. When we sold defoe to toronto as part of the deal maple leaf (torontos owners) would sell our merchandise across canada and also help with our new stadium (leiwenke was director of aeg when we were going for the os) and help seal the deal with the nfl.

Many other chairmen probably dislike this. Lyon chairman said as much when we signed lloris.