Saints Refusing To Be Held To Ransom
Tuesday, 25th Jun 2013 09:08

Latest news on the Victor Wanyama deal seems to be that the stumbling block is his agents demands.

Football agents are a part of the modern game, in some respects they are a useful commodity in that they enable a player to concentrate on playing rather than contract negotiations and also mean that harmony between player and club can be maintained letting the agent take the blame.

Now it seems that Victor Wanyama joining Saints rests on his agents being paid an alleged £1 million in order for the deal to take place, Saints chairman Nicola Cortese is said to be incensed by this and to be blunt I dont blame him and i hope that he sticks to his principles and refuses to pay any additions other than normal fees etc.

The players agents has been quoted in the media saying

"It is completely untrue that we are holding talks with Southampton. They were made aware some weeks ago what the player was looking for.

"At that time they were not prepared to meet that so, as far as we are concerned, discussions with Southampton ended some weeks ago.

"The player is in Kenya and has no immediate plans for a quick return. The player will not be railroaded into a move that is not right for him."

So in other words, this deal is all about money, not what would be a good move for a player who at 21 has his career ahead of him and plenty of time to earn big deals, yes of course all involved would want to make whatever they can out of selling Wanyama to whoever they can, but there is a fine line between earning what a player is worth and holding clubs to ransom trying to entice the biggest bid.

Wanyama is undoubtably a talent, however I would say he is not playing in a position that we are desperate to fill, if Wanyama genuinely wants what is best for his career he could easily tell his agents that he doesnt want a deal scuppered by this sort of practice and talk to Saints or whoever else is in for him, or he can sit back and wait for the money to come in.

Recent stories in the media have revealed that football clubs now look a lot further into a players attitude and background before signing them, than they ever did in the past, perhaps a players greed should be taken into account when considering how much we want a player and how much we are willing to pay him.

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slynch added 09:34 - Jun 25 Pay him whatever he wants. Compared to what Saints' have I've heard he's in a different league!?
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SaintNick added 09:39 - Jun 25 He is in a different League, ie the Scottish one, now how many hard games in that did Celtic have last season
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Jesus_02 added 09:48 - Jun 25

Agents of any kind are rarely worth their salt. Football Agents in particular are qualified in nothing in particular and in most cases, are really just chancers.

The league could do a lot worse than making payments to Agents against the rules. If players want agents then they could pay them a percentage of their income in line with enetertainers. At least that way there would be a direct link between the agents income and the players career.

As it stands, If Cardiff decide to pay the agent the aditional 1m, Wanyama could end up with less money in wages and arguably less carreer opertunity. Agents dont play football, agents play footballers

REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 10:13 - Jun 25

I hate football agents!! All they do is try to make as much money as possible! They rarely do anything for the player's interests.
Wayanama is a very good player who will get better and better. He might even be in a similar mould to Michael Essien, although Wayanama is better in the air!
But you can see what's going to happen if he's got an agent like that talking in his ear constantly. If Saints do stump up the additional agents fees, which I don't think they will, then in a year or two the same agent will be talking to Wayanama about playing for one of the biggest teams in Europe and how he owes it to himself to move on etc etc. And then once he's at that big club the moment things don't go his way the agent will be on to him again about moving on. All so they can make an extra Â£1m or so every time Wayanama changes clubs.
Good player. Very bad agent by the sounds of it.
I'd like to see him in a Saints shirt, because he could be great for us, but Cortese is right not to give in to extortionate agents fees. There should be a cap on how much an agent can make from a deal, like there should be a worldwide cap on how much a player can earn in a week (like Â£50k) but that will never happen!

Paul_Soton added 10:27 - Jun 25

Let's get behind Cortese on this!! We DON'T WANT TO BECOME ANOTHER QPR, poopey or the like. We have a 32,261 capacity stadium, while with fairly proportional TV money admittingly, and need to operate like one. WE DON'T NEED MONEY GRABBING, LACKING MOTIVATION, LACKING PROFESSIONALISM F*CKWITS. Especially those that could inturn unbalance a pretty professional and motivated squad we have already!!

darkangelv2 added 10:31 - Jun 25

Cortese did well to leak this as a face saving exercise. Especially as the Sun even lapped up the 'greedy agents' side of it. Who knows, perhaps Â£1million is completely normal for a deal this size (i have no idea).

Having said that, we did seem to underpay agents last year when compared to other big summer spenders (at least according to official accounts....). So Cortese does seem to be able to get agents onside in the end. Some of them anyway.

Jesus_02 added 10:52 - Jun 25

Qutoe to Sky Sports

"Added to this is the fact that by Celtic refusing him permission to join Queens Park Rangers last summer, Victor lost more than Â£1m in potential salary earnings - yet he just kept his mouth shut and continued to be a model professional. Many other players may not have adopted this attitude, in the circumstances."

Basically I read this as Wagamama wanting to move to european giants QPR and being well within his right to go on strike a year and a half after agreeing a contract with Celtic.

My advice is get another agent, or sign for Cardiff an get ready to go on strike when you are in the Championship. Sorry Cardiff fans if you buy this player it coulkd be a real statement of intent...similar to QPR signing Remy

ExiledSupporter added 11:55 - Jun 25

Agree, tell the agent to s*d off, it's not as though we need this player as much as we need other transfusions. Am I right in thinking that similar circumstances ultimately scuppered the deal for Buttner last year?

Anyway I should be very disinclined to see existing players displaced, who as a group and individually performed better for us than any other part of the team last year. More evidence of our disloyalty to, in this case, those players who gave outstanding service last season like Cork and Schneiderlein would be reprehensible.

What sense do we make of this particular bit of misplaced ambition and confused priorities on the part of the club. What are their priorities? As others have said it doesn't give a good message to some of our outstanding young talent, in this case Ward-Prowse.

The sort of erratic reasoning deployed by the likes of slynch (above, always a Schneiderlein detractor, tho' more muted recently) thankfully isn't typical of most fans. But what is the logic of the club in its transfer dealings...Louvren is the right sort of player, Wanyama would be quite a trophy, but other priorities must surely be our focus.

BaselSaint added 12:11 - Jun 25 The agents know perfectly well that the Premiership is even more awash with money now more than ever so there will be even more barefaced greed. All the clubs should hold the line otherwise the agents demands will go totally rogue...
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slynch added 12:41 - Jun 25 SaintNick HA!!! You spotted that wind up then Nick! To answer your question: Away to Inverness on Dec 29th, football games don't get any harder than that!!
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REEDYREEDOREEDZ added 12:49 - Jun 25

I think Saints are right to target to Wayanama. He is going to be a great player. I reckon Poche had ideas of him and Schniederlin outworking and winning most Premiership midfield battles. With those two in the middle, we could really dominate a lot of teams.
It is harsh on Cork, who came in and helped save our season last year, but Poche didn't really see that. He's only taken Cork at face value and on the face of it, Wayanama would have a bigger impact in the midfield. Cork would then be used as a player to come on and close games out with 20 mins to go.
As for strengthening the midfield when other areas more desperately need it; you can only assume that these areas will be strengthened. We still need a winger with pace to play on the counter attack, we need cover at right back, and more importantly we need a goalscoring striker to help take the burden off of Lambert. We should be sorted for centre backs now, assuming Forren and Lovren will be the first choice partnership.
As for JWP, he'll have to go out on loan if he wants regular 1st team football. I can't see him getting ahead of Davis in the pecking order, let alone Cork, and Cork might not even be 1st choice next season.

stmichael added 12:49 - Jun 25

This is the Premier League and modern day football.
It stinks really.
To think we signed KK for Â£400,00 who was the modern day Ronaldo in 1982!
Football really is going to Hell in a hand cart.
This bubble will burst and it will be fun seeing how clubs deal with that.
In the meantime we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Do we try and compete or do we stick to principles and try and survive?
I dont know the answer to that?
It was better in the lower leagues and I really mean that.

felly1 added 21:57 - Jun 25

Know what you mean stmichael. As much as love my club I get so disheartened by the greed and obscene amounts of money it requires to survive and prosper in this league. For sure the quality of player is top notch but I feel a real distance between myself and the players and then ultimately the club. I will always follow my team but I have begun to lose interest and have given up my season ticket . Im just going to pick out some Saturday 3pm games to go to and I can honestly say Im more excited with the prospect of watching a couple of Bournemouth games with my Cherries mad bro in law.

ericofarabia added 07:13 - Jun 26

The lower leagues were fun, because on the whole we were winning the majority of games and for 2 seasons in a row were barely ever out of the top 2 or 3.
The novelty would wear pretty thin pretty quickly. Ask any Leeds, Mboro, Forest, Brum, Coventry etc etc fan how much fun they are having.
Even the novelty of being in The Prem will wear off soon, once most of the big grounds have been ticked off, the ball breaking entrance fees take their toll and any failure to break down teams like Cardiff, Hull, Palarse, Norwich, Sunderland, Stoke etc at SMS.
Yes this league stinks, but lets hope our principles help us avoid buying anymore money grabbers and leave us with targets who genuinely buy into NC's Southampton Way !!

SaintNick added 08:59 - Jun 26 Lets be honest Eric, no players genuinely "buy into the Southampton way" we like every other club are just a stopping point in their career and happen to be their best option when they join for one reason or another including financial. This isn't anything against NC, its just the state of modern football
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