Radamel Falcao

[Special Juan 27,424]

^ lewandowski wants to bayern though.

Until he signs it's still open. He is an option.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

^ lewandowski wants to bayern though.

How do you know? By what the newspapers report? Or did you see him when you went out and bought some milk the other day?

Money talks. Players genuinely don't care what colour shirt they are wearing. Pay anyone £200,000 a week and they would play anywhere in the world. Look at Fal€ao. Fucking MONACO? He'll go there and his career will stagnate. Unless they spend another £100 million on top of Fal€ao they'll finish 15th at best.

[bababoom 4,478]

Francois Piraux ‏@F8Piraux1m

Deal done : Radamel Falcao would sign his contract with AS Monaco today

[BleedsBlue 1,549]

If he continues his good form,his stay at Monaco will probably only last to 12 months as Madrid or maybe other top clubs will reignite their interest in him.

He surely isn't going to be at Monaco for the long haul.

[BOSS 372]

ROFL i am actually happy we don't have him.

[LondonPride1905 236]

How the hell did this U - turn happen?! Is he really going to sign for Monaco?!

[Leif 6,006]

[Special Juan 27,424]

Makes me cringe this, it really does, and I know it's down to money etc but what posses someone to lower themselves to join Monaco? I mean fucking Monaco.

What an ambition less tosser.

[Leif 6,006]

So, which was the less ambitious move? Falcao to Monaco or Hulk to Zenit?

[Special Juan 27,424]

Both stupid moves, don't get any dafter IMO.

[Pizy 18,368]

So, which was the less ambitious move? Falcao to Monaco or Hulk to Zenit?

Monaco for sure.

[bababoom 4,478]

So, which was the less ambitious move? Falcao to Monaco or Hulk to Zenit?

Falcao will be a Madrid player within a year.

[Leif 6,006]

Falcao will cost Monaco £50m. Yes, that's in pounds.

Are a club who're mega-rich with huge ambitions to be one of the best (think PSG) sign a player for that then just sell him to Madrid the following season like "Aw, here's a favour for a club we have nothing to do with. Here. Enjoy Falcao. We don't want him."?

I also doubt Madrid would pay anything over or even near £50m for him, so Monaco would also be taking a loss.. and then have to go out and buy another striker.

I don't ever see him playing in Spain again after this move.

[Special Juan 27,424]

Falcao "Hey darling fancy living in Monaco"

His Tart "Yes darling that sounds wonderful"

Falcao "You can have anything you want, anything, a Yacht, Ferrari 495 bed house and so on"

His Tart "Brilliant darling let's go, you are going to make millions"

Falcao "Oh wait, I already do"

*Eastenders* Doof doof doof doof

[DanishBlue 426]

I also want to be a millionaire in Monaco.. Oh well..

[Las7 951]

Well it's unrealistic for him to go to any other Spanish Giants, so realistically the only clubs that can afford him are us; City; PSG; and Monaco - City; PSG already have quite a few top quality strikers, and obviously we are not going to fork 50 million for a 27 year old after the Poorres fiasco, specially if the forward is not blond

[Leif 6,006]

MERCENARY!!!!! No, not quite.

(Partially written by me so that it'd make more sense with clips taken from various (I assume) articles and information gathered from many sources. This is a long one but worth the read.)

(I also love posting things which let me underline and bold titles )

The Choice:

It's not really Falcao's choice to move to Monaco. This often happens with South American players; Hulk, Tevez and Mascherano being examples.

It's his third-party ownership pushing the move. It helps even poor clubs in a bad financial state capture really expensive players - as Atletico did with Falcao. They didn't actually pay the reported figure. We'll get to that in a moment.

The way 3rd-party ownership works is that investment groups will purchase the registration rights of an upcoming player that they can see profit in. This is sometimes done while the player is at a club but also often done as part of a transfer.

The reason a player would take this deal is simple - They get approached by an agent at a young age who asks him if the player wants support and marketing in Europe so that he can 'make it big'. The other pluses to this is usually better wages for the player, better management & better sponsorship deals.

If the player agrees to the terms in a complicated contract (almost like signing a major record label deal), the 3rd-party owners will then go to the club where he is currently registered (which would have been either River Plate or Porto in this instance; I'm not sure which one) and negotiate to buy his registration rights. While the player will then continue to play for clubs and be listed as a "Porto player" or whatever, Porto don't actually own him anymore. It's now like he's being loaned to them by the 3rd-party group!

The player is then in the hands of the management and third party ownership group, who manage every aspect of his career from that point on. That usually involves paying him a larger salary on top of his club salary, placing him in clubs where he will get more exposure, etc.

How this particular group works, Dissected:

The other way third-party ownership happens is that the investment group finances a transfer for a player. For eg. Porto want to sign a player from Argentina but don't have the funds. They would approach an investment group and have them stake 50-60% of the deal in return for the players registration rights. The investment group make all of this upfront investment with the hope that at some point in the future the player proves himself, becomes a star, and can then exit at a very large valuation.

When Falcao was transferred to Porto, I believe that's when this group came in and bought around 60% of his rights. They also gave him extra wages and then pushed the move to Atletico Madrid to get him more exposure so that a 'top club' could eventually buy him, which would bring in money for the 3rd-party group through shared transfer fee income and future promotions. Atletico never had the money to support this Falcao move. Almost all of it is down to this 3rd-party group. The money from the sales of Aguero and De Gea went into partially clearing their huge debt.

The group I talk about is called Doyen Sports and it was founded by Jorge Mendes (most famous as Ronaldo's agent, but an infamous player agent who is involved in a lot of third-party deals) and Peter Kenyon (our former chairman.)

Falcao, like Hulk, ended up in a situation where there was so much invested in him that it would take a lot of money for the investors to see a return (known as being highly leveraged). They were paying his salary for a few seasons, had floated Atleti some money to keep them alive (they got some shirt sponsorship in return) and had made the initial investment when he first transferred.

Falcao ends up moving to Atletico in a 40M move - despite Atleti the previous season stating that they had to clear players out because of their 50M euro tax bill with the Spanish government. What this ended up being is a 20 + 20M deal. 20M never gets paid because its just the third-party owners paying themselves, and of the other 20M only 16M is owed by Atleti, who take an option of paying in two 8M installments (they were late on the first one, to the point of Porto suing). End situation is that around 60% of the rights are with the Doylen group. It also appears that while Falcao was at Atletico that Doylen took an option for a larger stake in him since Atleti were late on their payments.

So basically Atletico Madrid just paid a big amount in fees for a Falcao loan! They have the minority of his registration rights!

The Money!!!

Falcao is on a wage of 10M euros per year, and the return the investors wanted is 60M euros in transfer fees. This narrows down the list of potential clubs that can buy you out to very few. Atletico have no say in where Falcao goes; they had an option in the winter transfer window, but that expired. The owners needed their return and they were going to get it one way or another.

The list can be narrowed down to PSG, Monaco, Real Madrid, Chelsea and City. City aren't making the same large investments at this point while PSG have their fix of strikers. Of the remaining three, it is apparent that Real Madrid didn't want to pay up the 60M + 50M in contracts for Falcao. Apparently we, Chelsea, matched the 60M clause but to pay Falcao the 10M per season in wages would involve a total gross salary of 300k+ per week, which just isn't manageable or viable really. We would also have the issue of not being allowed to directly purchase a player from a third-party owner (apparently this is what turned Man United off a move) so it would have required a two-step sale with Falcao going to one club outright and then to Chelsea. Apparently with the David Luiz transfer on the same day he moved to us, Benfica bought out the entirety of his rights from third-party owners (so you can get that Chelsea gave them the money to buy out that deal so that we could purchase 100% of Luiz directly from Benfica, thus avoiding the third-party rule in England which came about when Mascherano and Tevez joined West Ham United).

With all of these factors you end up with only one target: Monaco. They have the 60M to pay out the investors, they have the funds to pay his wages of 10M per year and better yet they have no income tax so they don't have to supplement the gross.

So in the end Falcao is moved around Europe by his investors with the only goal of making a return for them. He has little to no say in his final destination because of a deal he agreed to years ago while he was still in South America.

Falcao isn't a mercenary. Hulk isn't a mercenary. They just signed bad deals.

[HRiver 1,512]