Anthony Martin

Here’s why clubs don’t always disclose transfer fees Picture the scene: Your club has just landed the most highly sought after talent in Europe. You’re excited to read all the details and eagerly open your go-to sports app to see just how much the club have spent, only to learn that the player was brought in for an “undisclosed fee”. Annoying, right? There goes a couple of weeks worth of goading your mates in the group chat about how little their respective teams spend. So what exactly is an undisclosed fee and why do teams refuse to reveal the true fee so often? Stay with us to find out! First and foremost, let’s take a quick look at the history of transfer fees… There’s no denying the fact that football has always been a rich game. I mean, ever since the very early days of the game, clubs around the world and in England especially have been throwing money around. The first ever British transfer record was the £100 transfer of Willie Groves from West Brom to Aston Villa back in 1893. Now, this might not sound like a lot, but back in those days, £100 was more than a year’s wages for the average Joe. Of course, fees steadily rose over the next century, but in most cases fans knew just how much their teams were shelling out for a player. Back in 1979, the transfer of Trevor Francis from Birmingham City to Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest raised serious eyebrows all around England. Not only because it more than doubled the previous transfer record, but it was the first time in history a club had paid more than £1 million for a player; £1,180,000 to be precise. So what has all this got to do with the undisclosed fee? Well, back then, transparency was simply more common and most clubs would openly reveal how much, or little, they had spent on players. That all changed in the 1990’s, with the Sky era and the evolution of the game into a consumer product. With inflated TV deals, there was suddenly a lot more money around the sport. A player who would have once cost £1 million was now going for ten times the price and clubs were becoming increasingly wary of revealing just how much was coming in and going out. So let’s talk about the buying club Okay, so earlier we talked about the scenario where your team has just bought the hottest new talent. So why on earth would they be so sheepish about letting people know just how much they have spent? Well, there are a couple of factors at play here. First, if a team has been involved in a bidding war for their top summer target and have actually managed to bring the player in, he will often have had his price greatly inflated. This is simple economics, a supply and demand sort of situation. If a player is wanted by more than one club, his value will rise. Oftentimes this means clubs are paying far more than they originally thought they would be. In the cut-throat world of top-level football, there are numerous reasons for not wanting to disclose a fee in this instance. First of all, fans will expect much more out of a player who is signed for big money, this is just how it is. If he doesn’t make an instant impact, the club’s scouting department and management will be questioned, which could have a knock-on effect in regards the position of the manager if the team doesn’t start well - and in some cases even the board. Also, if a large chunk of the transfer budget has been eaten up on just one player, fans tend to criticise. Especially if the team needs investment in other areas of the pitch. Not disclosing the fee in these situations gives the player and team a little more time. However, it’s not just to appease the fans. Often, clubs know they are paying over the odds so it simply comes down to an exercise in saving face. I mean, would you want the whole world knowing you’ve just paid way over the odds for your teams latest shirt because it was the last one in the store? Obviously not, and thankfully this situation is illegal. What about the selling club then? The majority of the time, the selling club will follow the lead of the buying club - if the buyers don’t want the fee revealed, the selling team will more than likely go along with it. As usual, there are plenty of reasons for this. First and foremost, if a team is willing to enter into negotiations for the sale of one of their players, they more than likely want him off the books. This can be to free up wages elsewhere or to bring in a fee so they can strengthen the team. If they refuse to keep the transfer fee under wraps, they jeopardise an often-handsome payday. Smaller clubs can often be bullied into keeping the transfer fee disclosed. More often than not, bigger clubs will overpay to bring in a player they want and won’t particularly want to tell their fanbase how much they have spent, forcing the selling team to keep quiet in order to ensure their payday. There is also another reason why a selling club might want to keep quiet. Imagine they’ve spent big on a player the previous summer and he hasn’t produced. I mean, there have been plenty of those players over the years. Juan Sebastian Veron at Manchester United springs to mind. Strangely though, when Veron left Old Trafford, his fee was announced - and at £15 million, Chelsea had gotten their man for around half of what United had paid just 2 seasons before. Veron was an anomaly though. Usually, big money signings who fail will be ushered out quietly and an “undisclosed fee” marked next to their name for the benefit of the press. This, again, is to save face. The club has no interest in revealing just how much of a financial hit they have taken because the player hasn’t worked out. In this instance, the tactic actually benefits upper management, or the money men, more than anyone else. Surprise, surprise. So why do they even bother disclosing fees anymore? Well, there is one glaring reason for this. Yes, it is becoming more and more rare: the buying club or the selling club will often have their reasons as to why they want to keep quiet, but on the odd occasion, both sides are more than happy to announce just how much the deal has gone through for. Let’s say a big Premier League club wants to flex on a smaller club and bring in a Championship striker, Ollie Watkins for argument’s sake. Now, Watkins was in scintillating form for Brentford back in 2019-20, scoring 25 goals in 46 Championship games. Of course, this sort of form didn’t go unnoticed, and in swooped Aston Villa to bring Watkins to Villa Park for £28 million. In this case, both sides were happy to announce the fee, due to the fact that they both believed they had come away from the deal in a strong position. Brentford, as a Championship team, had secured a mammoth transfer fee and were able to rebuild their squad - a task undertaken magnificently by Thomas Frank, who secured promotion to the Premier League at the end of the same season. Villa, on the other hand, were happy to announce the fee to show the fans that they were willing and able to spend big. Having recently secured their status as a Premier League side, the Birmingham outfit were keen to show their faithful supporters that they meant business. And to be fair, the outlay on Watkins has paid dividends as he has been in sensational form since the World Cup. Do the players have a say then? You bet your bottom dollar they do. These days, there’s not much a top player cannot demand in his contract. A sign of the times, perhaps. That means, on occasion, they may ask the club they’re signing for to make sure the fee is undisclosed. But why, I hear you cry? Well, similar to the buying club, it simply gives them more time to settle and more time to win the fans over. If they start slowly, patience in the stands tends to wear thin very quickly. I mean, just look at Fernando Torres’ ill-fated stint at Chelse after his fruitful years at Liverpool. In this instance, Torres and Chelsea would almost certainly have been extremely confident that the transfer would work, so the fee was announced - around £50 million by all accounts. Wrong move. That gave the Spaniard less time to make it work and nowadays, more and more players are beginning to demand that their new teams do not disclose their transfer fees thanks to the bad experiences of players like Torres who came before them. So should clubs be allowed to not disclose fees? Well, it’s a bit of an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, the vast majority of teams around the world are privately owned, meaning the clubs don’t actually have to reveal to anyone - apart from Mr. Taxman - how much they are spending and receiving. However, many fans around the game believe that clubs should be completely transparent. Especially those who are spending thousands of pounds a year following their clubs around their respective countries, or even farther afield around the continent. For many fans, the amount they spend on their teams really does get into the thousands, too. I mean, we all know the guy who instinctively dresses his kids in the clubs latest home and away kits year-in, year-out. That stuff doesn’t come cheap. Most fans rightfully believe that if they are pumping money into the club, they should know where that money is being spent. This, in turn, would at least go some way to stopping greedy boards and owners syphoning off millions for their own personal gain. It could even highlight just how much agents are bleeding clubs for, but that is a conversation for another day: we all know how much of a plague on football those people are. Inevitably though, those at the top of the game will do whatever they can to make sure their positions aren’t threatened, which means that the “undisclosed fee” is almost certainly here to stay. Let us know what you think about today’s topic below. And don’t forget to share with any football fans you know of!