How do clubs deal with surplus players?

The new season of Europe's top five leagues have begun, but the "preparatory work" of each team is obviously far from over. Will Kane go to Manchester City? And what will the rest of the big players get? There are many more stories in the transfer market waiting for further development. And even for those clubs that have already splashed the cash on major additions, there are still pressing off-field tasks to be completed. Two examples: Chelsea are looking for a replacement for midfielder Bakayoko, while Arsenal have even more redundancies to clear: Willian, Bellerin, Torreira, Kolasinac ......

So the question is, what's the process, or routine, that clubs usually use to sell players they don't want? There's actually quite a bit of story here.

First of all, since we're talking about "clearing out redundancies", which basically means players that the club or manager doesn't want (or needs to trade for money), the first step in the whole operation is probably to let the player know that he has no future with the original team. On this point, open and honest talk is theoretically the fastest and most efficient way to get the "seller" to understand his situation in just one phone call.

Moyes is said to be a fan of "straight talk" with his subordinates.

But there is a bit of a lesson to be learned about who makes the calls and to whom. In the eyes of ordinary fans, if the commander directly informed the players, then it will appear to the former quite cruel, the latter's dislike or distrust of the expression is a little too blunt. However, according to "Athletic.com", a director of soccer of an English lower league club once told them, "If the relationship between the manager and the player is originally very close, the manager may feel that he owes the player a personal explanation." This means that a personal phone call from the manager doesn't mean that the relationship is bad, but rather it could mean that the two are on good terms. Of course, some coaches are character driven, such as Moyes, who is currently coaching West Ham, allegedly likes to "have a word" with his subordinates.

More often than not, the task of informing a player of his departure is left to the club's CEO or director of soccer, and most of them don't call the player directly - dialing his agent is a more common option, as it provides a buffer between the club and the player, and is less likely to inflame the issue immediately. Immediately intensified. The director of soccer who broke the news to the media, as mentioned in the previous article, also told a story about his own experience: "Once or twice I talked directly to the players, and the first thing they said was 'Are you fucking kidding me? That's not a good start."

Schweinsteiger has a history of being sent down to the reserves by United.

It would be ideal to have a good separation. In the absence of strife, the club gets a quick buck or at least saves money, and the player gets a fresh start elsewhere. But sometimes confrontation is inevitable, especially after some players feel they have been treated unfairly and badly - and by "treated" we don't just mean being told "better off elsewhere". ". "And then those who still have contracts on the line will resist, especially if they don't make the slightest concession on financial matters." Such was the view expressed to the media by a working member of a Premier League club's attraction team.

Of course players can be stubborn, and clubs can use all sorts of extraordinary tactics to get rid of them. The most traditional of these include the exclusion of "supernumeraries" from first-team training sessions, so that they no longer have access to the services of first-team physiotherapists and data analysts, as well as individual training sessions, which are completely segregated from each other. Further measures include being banned from the first team's dressing room, restaurant and parking spaces, and even being given a reserve team shirt to humiliate him. Another Premier League midfielder was recently removed from the club's first-team WhatsApp discussion group out of the blue because he was not part of the team's plans for the new season. That's a mental sanction too.

Freezing and isolating is a tough tactic that can be used on the club's part, but as the saying goes, it's more effective to use both soft and hard tactics, and the soft tactic is the agent's blowing the whistle and matchmaking. Because the player transfer often means high commission and generous commission, many professional agents are happy to "encourage" their clients to change, so as long as there is a reasonable price for the next home to take over, the player to change the place to break into the problem is not insurmountable. However, in addition to the buyer and seller clubs, players and players' agents, there are also a huge number of "middlemen" in the world. They are trying to make a profit wherever they can, and many times it gives the clubs a headache to buy and sell.

The website revealed a story from many years ago, when a Premier League club received abuse and threats from an agent after bringing in a player from a continental club. The latter looked furious and in a letter sent to the club's director stated that he "looks after all the transfers out of this continental club and should be paid accordingly". The director responded that his club had dealt with the seller's executives and players' agents and had never heard of another agent.

Just this summer, when Championship West Bromwich Albion's Brazilian winger Mateusz Pereira moved to Saudi Hilal FC, there had also been a significant number of brokers claiming to be the player's agent. And a Premier League executive once told the media that he had received de transfer or wiki pages for over 20 players from different agents, but when he asked if they could represent the players, the response was "No, but I can handle the players, I work for the club." Then the executive asked again, "You have authorization from FC Roma? Can I see it?" The other side, after a full answer, disappeared completely.

By TransferRoom's own account, more than 550 clubs around the world use their service, and last year it was revealed that at least 13 Premier League clubs were already using TransferRoom, so it may be that selling in the Premier League is a little bit easier than it used to be with the help of new technology. But then again, technological tools are ultimately just aids. Although the reduction of intermediaries can reduce transaction costs to increase the success rate, but just like dating a relationship, the most important thing is still have to appear to be able to see each other as a pair.

Writing | Yan Yu

Editing | Hu Zhaotang

This is the first time I've seen this.