Imagine you woke up this morning and found out that someone was offering you many times the salary you are on right now. Would you be happy if your current employers were standing in your way of that? That, allegedly, is the dilemma facing Morelos today.
According to reports in the media – which the hacks responsible said had been thoroughly checked out – the “offer” from China is real and the club is holding firm on saying no.
And in doing so, they are presumably denying the player and his agent the pay-day to end them all.
When Chinese money was being flashed around England, a number of players went to their clubs and practically demanded to leave. Here, you know full well that the club itself would be just as keen to get the player out the door.
This story has collapsed already. Yesterday, the media had named one team and today they are naming another. The trail of mistakes and unforced errors is already humiliating; in yesterday’s reports the team they named was Guangzhou Evergrande; in fact, they have four foreign players in their squad at the moment, which is the national league limit. That scuppered a lot of early reports and had the press pack flapping and chopping and changing.
That club name appeared in and was removed from at least one online story at The Record, only to be resurrected in another hours later, long after it had been blown to pieces. But not to worry; the paper simply changed the name of the club involved.
And this is where it gets hilarious.
The club they named this morning, Beijing Renhe, was a second tier team last season. They won promotion to the top flight in second place. The website transfermarkt.com values their entire current first team squad at only £6.5 million.
Now, I’m not saying you should rely on that figure; the same website drastically devalues Scottish based players, putting Moussa Dembele at a mere £4.5 million, and Kieran Tierney at £1.8 million. They are seriously lacking when it comes to putting an approximate value on footballers here.
But one thing is for certain; Beijing Renhe has never spent close to £7 million on one player and the salary he would allegedly command is vastly in excess of what they currently pay players. Their star footballer is the Ecuadorian forward Jaime Ayoví; he signed for them last season for £3.4 million.
The story is garbage. That we’re now on Day 2 of it is extraordinary. If this offer was real neither club nor player would wait more than two seconds before the farewell speeches were being given. One hack this morning – and yeah, I’m naming you Neil Cameron – said that the club’s financial position was not as bad as some people say “day after day.”
Here’s my series of questions to him, like a good journalist should ask.
Is Sevco presently indebted to shareholders for sums over £15 million?
Answer; yes.
Is Sevco presently “a loss making company without a credit line from a bank?”
Answer: yes.
Is Sevco presently dependent on further loans from shareholders to get through the season?
Answer: yes.
Do Sevco’s financial projections allow for a loan-free campaign next time around? In short, will they need more loans next season?
Answer; yes.
You see what happened there?
The club is running on fumes. It is, in point of fact, skint.
It is, in point of fact, in a position precisely as bad as we have been saying day after day.
The noises about not needing to sell are barefaced lies, and they are barefaced lies a media that is beyond embarrassment is pushing like a hard drug.
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