Quote SmokeyTA="SmokeyTA"Net or gross? And is that adjusted for inflation?
Man Utd have broken the British Transfer record 3 times in the premier league era, no other team has done it more than once. Of the 100 biggest transfers of the premier league era (adjusted for inflation) Man Utd account for 18 of those, second only to Chelsea. With just those 18 transfers accounting for over half a billion pounds.
How does a marquee allowance allow big signings to over-run their youngsters? Having a marquee allowance actually does the opposite in that it makes it more accessible for a club to not get 5 or 6 mediocre overseas players and pay then 75k a year, but to get 1 super star and pay him £400k a year and fill the gap with youngsters.'"
I have no idea about man utd, I read, ahem skimmed, an article in the financial times about it, this is all I can remember! I shall concede to superior knowledge if needs be the case on the matter!
As for bringing in a marquee not affecting bringing youngsters through - I don't believe for a second clubs would "instead of" bringing 5/6 mediocre players through they'll bring in 1 marquee, it'll be 4/5 plus the marquee, who will as have the advantage of being undropable, regardless of who rises through the ranks. And it won't be 4/5 as the none fed trained quota is rising to 7 again (terrible idea) and that's without counting the numerous ways around it
Also, clubs have a finite amount of money (even Salford) - if they're choosing to spend 400k on a marquee signing, that money has to come out of the budget somewhere else! And given the previous history a lot of clubs have in this country, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it's young player retention!
Salford sign rangi chase on a 4 year contract, theo fages has to adopt a new position to compensate etc. (I know the arguments about this, he's not ready yet, it'll take the pressure off him etc etc etc, but this is the reality of it)