Pay Cuts / £50k extra for Sharp

[Norfolk N Chance]

1) £50k extra for Billy due to promotion
2) Players taking pay cuts inc Saunders.

[MrFrost]

50k?? Is someone having a laugh?

[roverstillidie91]

Was thinking more like 6 figures would be a realistic amount seeing how much monies Southampton are going to get for getting promoted

[RoversAlias]

50k? You must have missed a zero off Norfolk surely! That is pittance.

[Thinwhiteduke]

Thats got to be 500k minimum surely? You have made a typo havent you? You must have....surely.

Christ on a bike....Southampton must be pissing themselves laughing.

[moses]

Depends what was in Sharp's initial contract.
If it only had a minimum release clause for the full transfer fee, £50k is better than nothing, Southampton may not have been obliged to pay anything.

[DonnyNoel]

If there was a clause in Billy's contract allowing him to leave for £x then its interesting if there is an add-on clause like this and interesting to know how it works.

Do we assume the fee was £1.8m and we negotiated with Southampton how that £1.8m was to be made up? Depending on the answer to that question we can't really judge that £50k figure. I don't get the hysteria on this (yet). If we got example A - £1.75m up front with £50k for promotion thats sensible by Rovers. If we got example B- £1m up front with £750k for an England capand £50k for promotion then thats dumb admittedly.

A release clause is a release clause and I don't think we're going to know the full details of this.

[DRNaith]

I'm surprised we've got anything!

He had a clause that meant that we had to sell him regardless of any sell-on agreements, appearance frequency or, in this case, promotion.

Beggars can't be choosers, it's 50k more than I was expecting.

[Chris Black come back]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

[Filo]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

Got to say I agree with that, I don`t begrudge Billy a stab at the premiership but it sticks in the throat a little when he deserted us in our hour of need, especially as we rescued him from the stiffs at Sheff Utd and resurrected his career1 £50K? it`s an insult!

[CusworthRovers]

What's all this got to do with Billy?

I thought he was just a footballer who did very well for us under Sean. Was average under Deano and notably now he's settled and happy again, as looked very much the Sharp in Billy Sharp again when he's played for Soton.

[DonnyNoel]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

Got to say I agree with that, I don`t begrudge Billy a stab at the premiership but it sticks in the throat a little when he deserted us in our hour of need, especially as we rescued him from the stiffs at Sheff Utd and resurrected his career1 £50K? it`s an insult!

Insult to what? His fee was £1.8m as per his contract, as has been mentioned by others we don't know anything about how this £1.8m is broken down or if this £50k is an extra that Soton gave us on top. We can't refuse an offer that meets a clause on the basis we want more bonuses on top.

If we'd have said to Soton - ok you can have him for £1.3m and then £500k promotion bonus and then they didn't go up there'd be hell on right now. I don't get this hysteria, the clause was what it was (and agreed by the club 2 years ago) and hopefully the club have structured it so we see as much of the £1.8m as quickly as possible.

This is not the same as the Brian Deane fiasco.

[Chris Black come back]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

Got to say I agree with that, I don`t begrudge Billy a stab at the premiership but it sticks in the throat a little when he deserted us in our hour of need, especially as we rescued him from the stiffs at Sheff Utd and resurrected his career1 £50K? it`s an insult!

Insult to what? His fee was £1.8m as per his contract, as has been mentioned by others we don't know anything about how this £1.8m is broken down or if this £50k is an extra that Soton gave us on top. We can't refuse an offer that meets a clause on the basis we want more bonuses on top.

If we'd have said to Soton - ok you can have him for £1.3m and then £500k promotion bonus and then they didn't go up there'd be hell on right now. I don't get this hysteria, the clause was what it was (and agreed by the club 2 years ago) and hopefully the club have structured it so we see as much of the £1.8m as quickly as possible.

This is not the same as the Brian Deane fiasco.

You are right on none of us knowing the detail, but wrong on this not being the same as the Brian Deane fiasco. It is directly comprable to Deane. We had on our books a top notch striker who got sold for peanuts when he had 18m left on his deal. Think about it. Craig Mackail-Smith 3.5m, Nicky Maynard 2m. Southampton got an absolute steal there and we got bugger all. Factor in that we paid 1.1m for him and god knows whether we promised Blades a cut of the sell-on profit and I doubt we actually made anything at all out of selling our most valuable asset at the worst possible time of the season.

[DonnyNoel]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

Got to say I agree with that, I don`t begrudge Billy a stab at the premiership but it sticks in the throat a little when he deserted us in our hour of need, especially as we rescued him from the stiffs at Sheff Utd and resurrected his career1 £50K? it`s an insult!

Insult to what? His fee was £1.8m as per his contract, as has been mentioned by others we don't know anything about how this £1.8m is broken down or if this £50k is an extra that Soton gave us on top. We can't refuse an offer that meets a clause on the basis we want more bonuses on top.

If we'd have said to Soton - ok you can have him for £1.3m and then £500k promotion bonus and then they didn't go up there'd be hell on right now. I don't get this hysteria, the clause was what it was (and agreed by the club 2 years ago) and hopefully the club have structured it so we see as much of the £1.8m as quickly as possible.

This is not the same as the Brian Deane fiasco.

You are right on none of us knowing the detail, but wrong on this not being the same as the Brian Deane fiasco. It is directly comprable to Deane. We had on our books a top notch striker who got sold for peanuts when he had 18m left on his deal. Think about it. Craig Mackail-Smith 3.5m, Nicky Maynard 2m. Southampton got an absolute steal there and we got bugger all. Factor in that we paid 1.1m for him and god knows whether we promised Blades a cut of the sell-on profit and I doubt we actually made anything at all out of selling our most valuable asset at the worst possible time of the season.

My point re not the same as Brian Deane is regards specifically to the sell on fee - in which case it is totally different.

With BD we were free to negotiate the transfer completely and should have out a clause in, with BS we were not - we were obligated to accept Soton's offer.

But I sense you're going deeper and calling the whole minimum fee release clause in Billy's contract a fiasco? In which case on the face of it you are correct - we have let Billy go for a steal (like Deane) but then who's to say he would ever have signed in the first place had he not had the clause?

[jmt]

Is it the case of Billy deserting us or being gently pushed to help with out of control wage bills.
I've not seen any concrete proof of what we got either, would not shock me if we got far less than said.

[DRNaith]

Is it the case of Billy deserting us or being gently pushed to help with out of control wage bills.
I've not seen any concrete proof of what we got either, would not shock me if we got far less than said.

Could it not have been a bit of both, mutual change?

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

What some may want to factor in is this.... Perhaps these clauses were a condition of him signing, IE without them he wouldn't have?  Would you rather have had him and then sold for 2M ish or not had him at all because of release clause issues?  It sounds similar to Adam Hammill at Barnsley where they lost him cheap but had they not agreed to that he wouldn't have signed....

[JonWallsend]

This has gone down in my book as comparable only with the £33,333 we got for Brian Deane and telling Kevin Keegan to come back when he was a man, as the crappest transfer deal Rovers have ever secured. I can barely look at the TV screen now when he is on, let alone with the knowledge we have basically made no money whatsoever out of giving him a platform to rebuild his career! Don't know who Billy had negotiating for him when he signed but you've done brilliantly there lad. 50k wouldn't even get us Justin Jackson.

The deal for Deane looked bad with the benefit of hindsight but I don't recall any great outpourings of grief when he left for £30,000.
We have sold some, or more accurately had no option but to sell, players at give away prices. Both Snods, John Buckley, Jim Dobbin, Les Robinson, Paul Raven readily spring to mind- I'm sure there are countless others.
The Billy deal is just one in a long line when we've been left feeling shortchanged but we got value while he was here and I think the release clause was paramount in him signing a deal in the first place.

[redwine]

Absolutely spot on Jon, I can't remember Mr Deane being particularly prolific whilst with us.