by Guest Sat Aug 13, 2011 7:50 pm
ALBERTO AQUILANI - The truth about his transfer fee. How much will he REALLY cost?There seems to be a lot of confusion over how much Liverpool paid/will eventually pay Roma for the services of Alberto Aquilani. Figures such as £20m, £17m and £5m (!) have been bandied about, but the truth is the total outlay could (potentially) turn out to be much more.
On the 8th August 2009, Roma released official details of Aquilani's transfer fee. The fee is broken down as follows:
Four cash installments:
* €5m upfront
* €3m by 4th January 2010
* €7m by June 30th 2010
* €5m by June 30th 2011.
Base transfer fee = €20m/£18m
Further Add ons include:
* €300k for every year Liverpool qualify for the CL from 2010/11 to 2014/15.
* €250k every time the player reaches 35 appearancs; 70 appearances; 105 appeances and then 140 appearances.
* €1m the first time Liverpool either wins the Premier League or Champions League by 30 June 2014.
* 5% of any future transfer fee paid to Roma.
[b]ANALYSIS (all figures converted to pounds using today's conversion rate)
* If Liverpool qualify for the Cl every year from 2010 to 2015, a further £1.3m will become payable. How likely is it this will happen? Liverpool have featured in the CL in 8 of the last 9 seasons. There is no reason to think this will not continue.
POTENTIAL EXTRA COST: £1.3m (Based on CL qualification every year)
* If Aquilani reaches 140 appearances, a further £900k will become payable. Is this possible? For Aquilani to achieve that figure, he would need to make a measly 28 appearances each season for 5 years. This is clearly achievable.
POTENTIAL EXTRA COST: £900k
* If Liverpool win the league or CL by June 2014, a further £900k per trophy will become payable. Is it possible that Liverpool might win the league and CL in the next 5 years? Absolutely.
POTENTIAL EXTRA COST: £1.8m
* 5% of any future transfer fee to be paid to Roma. As an example: If Aquilani stays for the full 5 years of his contract he will be 30 years old. If he then leaves, it is unlikely that Liverpool will recoup the initial outlay (due to his age). So - if we conservatively estimate that Liverpool receive half the original price, that would net the club £9m.
POTENTIAL EXTRA COST: £450k (5% of 9m)
* Using the fact that only €5m has been paid so far as some kind of excuse/way to manipulate net spend is not fair or accurate. The total amount of the base fee will still have to be paid in less than 2 years!
CONCLUSION
The following is definite:
* Liverpool will pay £18m for Aquilani.
The following is highly probable:
* £2.2m will become payable as a result CL qualification/appearance levels
* £450k (or whetever fee we get for him) will become payable when Aquilani is sold. (This figure is just for the sake of debate - I'm not saying this WILL happen!)
The following is less probable but still possible:
* £1.8m will become payable as a result of winning the league/CL
POTENTIAL TOTAL COST OF TRANSFER - £22.45m
For the purposes of illustration, I have conservatively estimated Aquilani's eventual sale fee. It could easily go the other way - a club could come in with an Alonso-size offer, in which case Liverpool would have to pay even more to Roma.
So - almost £22.5m (potentially) for Aquilani, a player who 2.5 months into the season has not yet made his debut in the league or Champions League. And this is not taking into account any signing-on fee. Phillipp Degen received a £2m SO fee, so Aquilani's could be equally significant.
Given Aquilani's injury history, who got the better deal here - Liverpool or Roma?
If Aquilani turns out to be a superstar then the eventual total outlay will, of course, be worth it. If, however, the Italian turns out to be another flop, then we're looking at a large amount of wasted money.
From what we've seen of Aquilani so far, he looks calm, composed and comfortable on the ball - just what we need right now! I personally have no doubt that, if he stays fit, Aquilani will become an important player for Liverpool.
Read more: http://www.liverpool-kop.com/2009/11/alberto-aquilani-truth-about-his.html#ixzz1UtffYhMD
