The transfer saga of the now concluded move by Phil Jones from Blackburn Rovers to Manchester United will come back to haunt the owners at Ewood Park for as long as they remain there. Why? Because they have shown that their word, even if it’s bound by a contract, cannot be trusted. Whether the fee ended up being £16.5 or £20m plus ‘add ons’ as Rovers manager Steve Keen insisted on Sky News, all trust between players, their agents and the club owners has now been lost forever – all for an additional few million!
Here’s a scenario of what Rovers will face in the future. A new contract is offered to a youngster like Jones whose agent insists on a buy out clause during its term. Blackburn will naturally want to negotiate as high a figure as possible while the player and his representative will rightly demand the opposite. More importantly, the agent will insist on the clause being absolutely watertight without any possible room for a challenge.
The end result will be that the figure finally settled upon will be less than what the club really want simply because no trust exists after the drama that Rovers forced Jones to go through. Any agent worth his salt can never settle for anything less.
So what lessons can be learned from this whole unpleasant episode? The basic one is that clubs must resist the temptation to be greedy. An unrealistic amount of money is being demanded for unproved youngsters. Jones has made just 35 appearances for Rovers in his first Premier League season yet Blackburn felt that a whopping £16.5 was not enough!
United and other leading clubs were prepared to pay that amount purely based on the potential he undoubtedly has yet we have all seen how dozens of promising whiz kids have failed to make the grade in the past. Some sane balance has got to be found.
Did United pay over the odds for Phil Jones?
I AM GLAD YOUR MANAGER IS NOT AS MUCH IN LOVE WITH AGENTS AS YOU ARE.. THEY ARE THE ONES DESTROYING FOOTBALL… BE VERY CAREFUL YOUR THE CLUB IN THE RED.. AND HIS AGENT IS THE SAME AS ROONEY’S lol lol
And the question of when will manu ever take the decent route in buiying players by acting professionally. Every supporter knows that united tapped the player up when he suddenly appeared at Fergies villa in France BEFORE the agreed clause price was met. United think they are above the rules. This is now the second time they have been caught out and have had to increase a payment to prevent the matter going forward. Fergoe should by now realise that to annoy the press just makes them more determined hence how he was caught out when the journo in the same area followed his nose and got the scoop many others would die for. Rovers deserve every credit for taking united for a further £4m and standing their ground. United dont have morals so wjhy should the little clubs bow down to them ? Truth is they shouldnt. There is no doubt Jones will be a top player and its a credit to our club as well a sJones himself that he has gone for huge money so early in his career. As a Rovers fan I just ask the following question, how would United like an academy like ours because in recent years you are well off the pace like your reseves.
This is probably the most pathetic excuse for a ‘article’ i have ever seen in my entire life.
He was our player, and we can ask for however much we want.
Manchester United illegally became aware of how much Phil Jones release clause was and were also rumoured to have tapped up Jones before a offer was made.
How can we be sure? Do you really think that United would have upped the offer above the £16.5 million clause if they weren’t in the wrong?
But hey, you deluded glory-hunting United fans have probabyly worked it into your head that you were just being generous.
Your a horrible excuse for a football club who undertake your transfer business in a disgusting way.
greed?! really? how about wanting to hang on to one of your best players? This is the most absurd journalism i’ve ever read. How about respecting that a player is under contract with another club instead of coming in to tempt him away? The fact that we have to have buyout clauses in their contracts is bad enough. The view from your tower is foggy, indeed. How about writing something about how you just signed a great prospect and you’re excited to see him play instead of trying to ridicule (unsuccessfully) another club that are simply trying to hang on to their assets.
@tombo1984
Fuck off u twat. Man utd had already agreed personal terms and a medical with phil jones so the fee could be non-negotiable anymore. Also, phil jones release clause was £16.5m so u had to sell him any way.
Also, i’m not a glory hunter, i’m from manchester, ur just sore cos we’re a successful club and ur an absolute shithole with crappy owners and cant admit jones wanted to move to a good team.
Fucking bellend
@aidan
Ur absolutely right
@tombo1984
u are a fucking twat, he already agreed personal terms, go fuck ur mum u fucking excuse for a human. Ur owners also came after his contract was signed so u couldnt do anything anyway.
Who do u think u are,tapped up just like berbatov,no fee agreed yet he was on sky sports news in Manchester,I was great seeing real give you cnuts one up the bum when cr7 jumped ship(wiskey face was full of shite when he said he wouldn’t sell them a virus)hope jones ends up like an other tapped up player that has just been given his p45 this year(21 million).man u = no class
@ tombo 1984
Fuck u twat
Phil jones release clause was 16.5m he had already agreed personal terms anyway, so fuck off just because he wanted to actually move to a succesful club. The fee was non negotiable after u agreed the fee anyway, ur owners dont know jack shit about footy.
@ leyland blue
fucking delusional twat. Phil jones had agreed terms already, the fee was non negotiable so just fuck off, u have no reasons for keeping him or asking for more, he only wants success and u cant offer that. Anyway, i also am a man utd supporter all my life and i live in manchester.
This is the biggest piece of cr*p I have ever read pal, If I was you Scicluna dont give up your day job you deluded idiot!!!!!!!
Just another bitter rant by a red because they have been shown up in public. Your players cant take it when people stand up to them on the field and the club cant take it when other clubs stand up to them and not let them do what the hell they like.
Good luck big Phil. Keep your blue shirt on beneath the red one.
Aidan you six fingered twat mummys calling —- nob-rash!!!
Aiden,you lot are all from Manchester ha ha ha u dickhead.more like you mates dad worked there for 2 weeks and that’s why you follow utd,my own cousins like you lot. I remember him following Ipswich(he’s man u now)he can’t remember it but I can,who did u follow b 4 man utd?btw don’t follow Blackburn just think rab c nessbit get away with murder.barca now there a side with class 🙂
Listen to what you’re saying, aiden. You can’t begin negotiating personal terms with a player until you’ve talked to the club first about price. Nobody here is suggesting that he didn’t want to go to manchester united. Man U is a bigger and better club. Nobody is arguing that. We all know he wanted to go, and I personally wish him the best of luck. The arguement, however, is on how the deal was done. Imagine somebody coming and taking something of yours without ever asking. It’s exactly what happened. You can’t negotiate or agree terms with a contracted player without first talking to the club.
As a member of the yid army I would love to meet you aiden for a minute or 10 that’s all I would need,I think I would end up pishing in ur face 🙂
To be frank,frank ur a ballbag
Absolute classless, neanderthalic responses to a diabolically written, throw away article.
Sums up Manchester United to a tee.
Same fans that were howling their outrage when Mr. Ronaldo wanted to play for someone better.
Show me a Utd fan and I will show you an automaton.
Oh, and thanks for the cash.
How about just drawing the conclusion that buy out clauses are a recipe for disaster,discontent and acrimony all round…info is leaked/clubs are back-stabbed/agents manipulate everyone etc etc etc Maybe they should be banned. Maybe one transfer window a year. Maybe wage caps etc etc Anything but the dog eat dog greed that seems to dominate a once (fairly) honourable game.Ok big clubs will always “buy” success etc but surely the playing field needs to levelled a bit if only to bring player’s wages back down to reality.Or do we all want to live in a world of football franchises and ruthless business models.
Fergie wanted to pick B/burn’s pocket…why steal when you are rich already?
@aiden
“ur an absolute shithole with crappy owners and cant admit jones wanted to move to a good team. Fucking bellend”
sorry, which set of fans wear norwich scarves as a protest to their owners?
People need to remember that it was the owners that insisted on the buyout clause being in the contract. That means that they must sell at that price if someone offers it.
Also, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs also offered the same money, so it’s not just United that knew about the clause. You should be looking at the person from within your club that leaked it, not United.
Goodness me! Listen to the anger, bitterness and frustration coming out of Rover fans – and they cannot really be blamed. This whole fiasco came about because of Blackburn’s crap owners and manager who agreed to the contract Jones signed just FOUR months ago and for allowing the lad to have his medical at United last week.
By the way Russ, I have not needed to have a day job for over two years so I do not have one to give up. And I still don’t believe that a 19 year old who played fewer than 50 Premier League games is worth anything like £16.5m, remember that the £20m does not kick in until he meets certain conditions – which I sincerely hope he does because it will benefit United. But then who am I to question Fergies judgement?
Tombo…. the only thing more embarrassing to Rovers fans than Venkys. What an absolute fucking retard you are
Ha ha ha, that’s a good one that is…..a Utd fan lecturing on the subject of greed. You must have a really under-developed sense of self-awareness.
On a slightly different matter any ideas on who’s going to replace the overweight, anger-issued, dipsomaniacal, inferiority-complexed one when he eventually pops his clogs or realises that he’s never going to win the European cup more times than Liverpool?
I cant Complain about jones leaving but for too long the top 5 have been able to bully teams for young players. Jones is a class player and if Henderson who is average at best is worth £20 million so why shouldnt rovers be able to barter for more money.
As a rovers fan I wish Phil all the best for the future, he will undoubtley be a massive success , as long has he does not spend the next two years warming the bench.
A couple of points here though without doubt united where given the nod on the buy out clause, so in terms of trust a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here. The venkys did the right thing here we have lost without doubt one of the best center halves in the division.
Second point to say this kid is unproven is tosh, he played 35 games over the season, and Rovers fans will tell you this kid is not called superman because he wears his underpants on the outside. His debut was against Chelsea two seasons ago, with Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba on the field that day and he kept them both quite. The only reason why Utd fans are stressing about this fee is because you have not bothered to watch the kid properly. He is better than John Terry ever was and will be better than Ferdinand and Vidic.
man utd have signed him for 5 years and the chances are he will sign for another 5, so two milion a year does not seem to much to me, on top of that he is english and with the home player squad rules in place , this adds to his value, all the venkys have done is having realised one of our prize assets has had his head turned is try to get every penny they can for re-investment and why do utd fans care when this kid is the england captain you will sell that many shirts with his name on the back you will get your money back anyway.
Frank, you’re no better than anyone on here spewing insults (from both rovers AND manu fans alike) because you’re allegations and general temperament towards blackburn rovers has been equally as unfounded. The upgraded contract was a reward for how well he’d been playing, and we are thankful that the new contract was put in place, otherwise a bigger club would have still come in and done the exact same thing except paid a lot less money. And allowing him to have his medical?! Please think before you speak. A player does not just suddenly have a medical with another club without first being approached by that club. Would you show up and set up all your desk stuff at a job that you’ve never applied for? You talk to the club first, then the player. It’s that easy and it obviously didn’t happen that way with this transfer. The only thing i agree with you on is that we cannot put begin to thoroughly estimate his value.
Absolutely nothing to do with bartering Adam Rovers fan. It’s all about upholding a legal document that Rovers were happy to agree with when negotiating with a 19 year old lad – then were desperate to find some sort of loophole a few weeks later. As for Henderson, do you know if he had a buy out clause in his contract? If not, his club could have asked for whatever they liked.
Nathan, if the clause in the contract hadn’t been put in then you could have negotiated for whatever price you wanted, like Sunderland did.
As soon as the clause was met it took Blackburn completely out of the equation and they had to do the deal. Research the Ziegler case for Liverpool a few years back.
And a medical has to be agreed by the selling club. United met the clause, Blackburn agreed to let him do the medical, but the owners thought that they were still to negotiate the fee.
Blame the owners for not being 100% clued up on contract stipulations
from the news we were getting the clause only stated that any club putting £16.5 mill in for jones only had the oppurtunity to speak to the player not to finalise the deal.. And for what it was worth there was talk that fergie was going to loan him back for a season no chance of that now
D Luthor, thank you for being civil. I wish the contract didn’t have the clause. If rumours are to be believed, though, it sounds like he had a similar clause (for a lot less money) in his previous contract. I should have been more specific with that.
I’m aware of the requirements of letting the kid talk to clubs when the correct number is met, but from everything being spouted about, it just appears as if they talked to the player before ever talking to the club. If i’m wrong, then that’s fine but it still doesn’t excuse half the rubbish being thrown around here.
Who gives a shit anyway? United paid up in the end so job done… everyone move on.
United wouldn’t have paid another dime if they hadn’t in some way fallen foul of some ruling so in a way both clubs have cocked up along the way.
Once again good luck big Phil.
PS: Keep that Rovers tattoo hidden Phil in the dressing room or you’ll get the hairdryer treatment.
Sensible words Bluerover. Good luck next season
Has it not dawned on you simpleton yonners that Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs all knew about the buy-out clause so there is either somebody from Blackburn or the agent leaking the info. Once this is out in the public domain there is nothing to stop the player going to speak to other clubs as he actually did. But don’t let that stop you bleating about big bad United.
Frank…what about the scousers offering £22m for him?? You can see why the owners might be a bit pished off if other clubs are offering more dosh surely? Here’s a little analogy..You’re selling your PS3 on fleabay and begrudgingly put a reserve of £16.5m on it (you don’t want to sell it but the PS3 says you’re crap at gaming and doesn’t want your grubby paws on it anymore!!). Some mad jewboy who lives in a nice house offers you £16.5 million for it, however he is outbid by some council estate no-mark mickey who offers a cool £22m. Then lo and behold the bloody PS3 says there is no way it’s going to live with the thieving toe-rag and the only place it wants to go is to jewboy’s house (because man that boy can game). Would you be happy?
Just a simple observation. Have you guys ever spent a few days with international footballers in a training camp, travelling or sharing hotel rooms? What do you think they talk about during meal times? That’s why these sort of ‘confidential’ clauses will never remain a secret. Before you know it, every club and journalist will now precisely what’s included in every players contract. Then of course there’s the agents…..
This article is absolutely ridiculous. Written with no factual backup and purely on bias. Blackburn’s owners had every right to get the highest price for Jones. You say that you paid a fair price and Blackburn should just accept that, what a joke. Jones is obviously worth more than what you where going to pay and that is why Arsenal and Liverpool submitted higher bids. The owners obviously had a case and that is why you have now paid more for the player, but I guess you must be right because by the way you talk in this article it sounds like you have been able to closely inspect his contract for yourself.
another simple observation is that I think you got most people’s goat by accusing Blackburn of being greedy. Yes you’re correct that Jones is not worth £16m – and in a normal world he isn’t – however EPL unfortunately is not the normal world. If Carroll is worth £35m then Jones is worth easily in the £20m’s. If Venky’s believed that £16.5m was the trigger fee to start the bidding and other clubs were willing to go above this, then I wouldn’t call it greedy but simply trying to get the best price for your product.
If you were to be honest what would you say if a similar situation arose with Rooney? Let’s say City found out about a release cause and met that figure, Madrid offered a third more…and lets say Milan threw in an increased bid for good measure. What would you be saying then?
I will say it again for the red persuation fans on here who obviously either have A) very poor eyesight (looking at you Frank) or B) the pig-headed Manu fans who start getting abusive whenever someone dares says something they don’t like. Smacks of a child having a temper tantrum by the way…
‘If’ Manchester United weren’t in the wrong at all. Then why is it that their are add-ons ‘ontop of’ the £16.5 million you guys paid us for Jones.
Steve Kean said live on SSN earlier that the deal had the potential to go up above £20 million: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11676_6988447,00.html as well as being quoted on the official Rovers site: “a potential club record deal with Manchester United for young England defender Phil Jones”. Bear in mind that the club record pre-Jones stood at the £18 million transfer of Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City: http://www.rovers.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10303~2373521,00.html
So as the United fans above have said… The clause was £16.5 million pounds. So why then did Manchester United agree to pay Rovers further amounts if they were perfectly within their legal rights to only pay the clause out £16.5 million.
The simple fact as we and all Manu fans know is that on many a occasion United have been involved in questionable transfer deals where they have either been hinted heavily at tapping up players (Hargreaves at Bayern and Berbatov at Spurs). So i will say it again. How did Manchester United know what the clause was? A clause that is legally hidden.
The sad thing is i know no Manchester United fans will ever admit to being in the wrong. So i would suggest all Rovers, Arsenal, Liverpool fans to allow them to continue living in their own little fantasy world.
The worst thing in the Premier League and the vast majority of United fans are scum as evident by the above abuse that has been rifled out the fingers of tiny fools hiding behind keyboards and computer screens.
‘the common Manchester United fan’
@boyofdarovers – Let me make it perfectly clear that I am not a legal man so I can only give you my layman’s understanding. In the Rooney example that you raised, I would suggest that as long as the figure in the release clause was met, the player would be able to go to the club of his choice. A legal precedent was set when Ziegler went to Liverpool a few years back even though other clubs offered a higher fee.
Can someone please explain why Venky’s AGREED to a £16.5m trigger fee only four months ago if their valuation of Jones was much higher? It simply does not make sense. The greedy accusation came in when the owners realised that they had mistakenly undervalued their player in todays highly inflated transfer market then started looking for a way to get out of a contract that they themselves had signed.
Hi Frank. So if I’m reading your response correctly you’re accusing Venky’s of being remiss in undervaluing Jones rather than being plain greedy really.
To be fair I don’t think there will be any QC’s reading this and as I’m pretty sure none of us know the exact details, so we are really just airing our (laymans) views and none of us know exactly what the £16.5m actually meant.
The Rooney example – God forbid it ever came to fruition – was not a request for your legal view on this hypothetical transfer but was to see how you would feel should the boot be on the other foot. Would you want Glazers to try their best to get more money or would you think they were being greedy if they did? Would you feel bitter and angry that City were getting Rooney for less money than other teams were prepared to offer?
Can I just say, yet again, that Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs all knew about the release clause in the contract as well.
Have a go at the person within your club that leaked the info, not United, who just took advantage of the situation like all other clubs would of done.
Typical Manchester United comment. Always blame the other party irrespective of the evidence. If its a football game its either the pitch, the referee, the colour of the shirts or the way the opposition play the game. Same in the transfer market, United are always whiter than white and we all know that isn’t true! Come on united stop sniping at smaller clubs and get your own house in order.
I read your article and was so annoyed I decided to leave a comment and then scrolled down to realise that plenty of other people also think you’re an idiot and had beaten me to it.
Why Man U fans think that all other clubs should just bend over and take it when they wade in for a player I really don’t know. Do you think that when Ronaldo went off to Spain your board sat there and went “oh no lets not be greedy, just give us what you think is right” – of course they didnt, they fought for as much cash as they possibly could.
As for him not being worth £16 million – if Henderson is worth £16 million then Jones is worth at least £20 million.
tombo you are so disabled
woah… seems like a load of COCKneys are getting angry about some blackburn fans speaking their minds (heaven forbid someone speak out against man utd)
anyway sorry to see jones go, good player and all. but blackburn were just doing busy fair and square… you sell something, you want as much money as possible for it… first rule of business, don’t sell yourself short and try and get the best deal possible, if that means having a £16million sell on clause so be it.
People in glass houses…
Are United fans capable of stringing a sentence together without swearing and being aggressive? Or being insolent in Frank’s case.