Last night, when Sevco dropped Morelos, I spoke to a good friend of mine who told me that wasn’t the story. He told me the real story was a guy sitting out “injured” and another who might make the bench but who would barely get on the pitch.
He was referring, of course, to Bruno Alves and Eduardo Herrera, the forgotten men of the “Murty revolution” and two of the highest paid players in Scottish football. These guys are leeching money out of Sevco week in, week out, and most people would be absolutely astounded to learn just how much of it that is. It’s not insubstantial.
Alves is probably Scottish football’s highest paid player; incredible, isn’t it? What a waste of money that guy has turned out to be, and it’s worse than anyone imagines. Phil has good sources inside Ibrox and he says Alves is on around £30,000 a week … but that’s not the end of it, not by any manner of means.
He was supposed to receive a signing on package.
That wasn’t paid in one go.
It is being parcelled out in instalments over the first year of his deal. How much? Another £20,000 per week. Alves will trouser close on £2.5 million before year one of his Sevco contract ends. Fortunately for them, year 2 will be cheaper; that’ll only cost them £1.5 million.
Alves is a player who, stated simply, they cannot afford to have sitting in the stand. He earns too much. And his injury means he’s being paid for doing nothing right now. No wonder they wanted him shipped off to Italy in the last window; that was never going to happen, because it would have meant him taking a huge hit on that huge salary.
Herrera is on less, but that’s not saying much because he too is being paid more than he’s worth, a reputed £20,000 plus. His pal Pena was on £26,000 and they didn’t manage to offset half of that when he went out on loan; Sevco is still putting £15,000 a week in his pocket. He already played half a season on his full salary, of course.
So let’s add that up; Herrera’s first season will cost them around £1,000,000. Pena will cost around the same, taking into consideration what he earned already and what he can expect to. Those three players, on their own, will cost that club the better part of £4.5 million before this season ends … minus bonuses, which adds up to God knows what.
And all of this threatens the club with financial trouble even without factoring in the latest screw-up, the one that has Morelos’ agent demanding wage parity. Because why should that man settle for having his client on less than these guys? Where are the clubs offering £8 million for their services? Where are their goals? Where are the performances that justify that kind of outlay? Morelos agent is not a stupid man, he knows his guy deserves at least that.
He’s on £7000 a week right now. That’s around £360,000 per year. His agent will want three times that – taking him over the £1 million mark – before he’ll feel even remotely satisfied. Don’t forget, the club has denied this guy – so claims the media – a move worth around eight times his annual salary. If he only asks for £21,000 the club is getting off light.
What I’m saying is that Sevco’s little transfer window stunt, where they allegedly turned down £8 million for Morelos, is going to cost them – conservatively – around £650,000 and that’s only if the player and his agent decide to play nice and low-ball their wage demand. If they want parity with the highest earner at the club their little media scam will cost them £1 million, easy.
This comes at the end of a window in which they’ve already increased the wage bill beyond the point of sanity.
That club is sitting on a time bomb.
This fiasco has made it a Hell of a lot worse.
And of course, the dominos don’t stop falling there. Sevco has this guy on a four-year deal, and if they start paying him £21,000 plus that’s going to severely limit the number of clubs who might fancy taking him off their hands in the summer.
Furthermore, what if his agent asks for a release clause in his new contract?
They didn’t think about that either, did they?
This doesn’t have a happy ending, you know.
Not for Sevco anyway.
And if the player doesn’t get what he wants?
Why, then he signs what they put in front of him – it’ll be more than he’s on now – and he spits out the dummy.
Watch his value drop like a rock.
How long before they end up paying this guy the full whack – £30,000 and upwards – just to keep him sweet, whilst waiting for an offer that’s never going to come? When they finally do flog him, try to remember how much this little affair has eaten out of their bottom line.
I know people inside Ibrox have taken Morelos aside and tried to explain to him that the interest from China was exaggerated. Perhaps they’ve even gone so far as to inform him that their PR department made it all up; consider, if you will, what that means.
If you were his agent, would you believe that? Of course not, and especially not when a BBC journalist claims to have seen the paperwork. Sevco has tied itself in knots here, and If you were that guy’s agent, and you were being told that actually all of this was a fake-out would you feel you could ever trust them again?
The relationship between Morelos and the club has been demolished. He will only be satisfied once he’s signed that new deal, and between the advance and the wages God alone knows what it will cost them before this thing runs its course.
As I wrote in the previous piece, Chris Jack and others are trying to put pressure on this kid by telling him if he doesn’t knuckle down that he will be benched or sat in the stand, but the trouble with that, as I’ve already shown, is that there are too many big earning players doing that at Ibrox already and they cannot afford another one. And no player’s value ever increased by being sat next to the director’s box like a kid being punished for throwing a tantrum.
It’s a bluff, and it’s a bad bluff and Morelos and his agent are probably well aware of it.
No matter how many media toadies Sevco trots out here, there is no way they will dump this guy in the reserves.
They need him on the park, whatever mood he’s in.
We all know by now that Dave King has expensive habits; it becomes ever more apparent that stirring up shite is one of them. Whether it’s spitting in the face of Ashley and then expecting him to meekly walk away, or pissing in the Takeover Panel’s coffee and expecting them not to get angry, or defying court orders and thinking there won’t be consequences … all of that impacts back on the club. He continues to pose an existential risk to Sevco.
But this is my favourite yet, the invention of a media story so absurd that no-one sentient believed it, except their own player, who they’ve baffled and angered and sickened, and his agent, who smells money and wants it, and wants it now.
Congratulations to all involved.
I would say this is my last article about this, but I am guessing it won’t be.
It’s the gift that just keeps on giving.
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