Crunchie,Jackson,wright,o'neill (transfer fees)

[HTD1875]

In the early nineties,in the space of a couple of seasons,hibs had a tremendous attacking quartet,macalaistar,Darren Jackson,Keith wright and Michael o'neil.
the combined transfer fees dougie cromb and the then board paid was close to £1.5 million ,how was it possible to pay such a huge sum in transfer fees yet twenty years later we can't find £30k for Liam Craig?
flumoxed!

[Fergus52]

In the early nineties,in the space of a couple of seasons,hibs had a tremendous attacking quartet,macalaistar,Darren Jackson,Keith wright and Michael o'neil.
the combined transfer fees dougie cromb and the then board paid was close to £1.5 million ,how was it possible to pay such a huge sum in transfer fees yet twenty years later we can't find £30k for Liam Craig?
flumoxed!


Cause we all know for a fact that 30k would have been enough :rolleyes:

[HTD1875]

Cause we all know for a fact that 30k would have been enough :rolleyes:
No I don't know that,but how could we afford such huge transfer fees twenty years ago?

[7 Hills]

No I don't know that,but how could we afford such huge transfer fees twenty years ago?

Because we could expect to take in decent money when a player transferred out pre-Bosman ruling. Post Bosman, the power now lies with the player.

[HTD1875]

Because we could expect to take in decent money when a player transferred out pre-Bosman ruling. Post Bosman, the power now lies with the player.
That sounds right,though to my recollection we didn't make any money back from those players.

[I'm_cabbaged]

How much debt did we get in again? Apart from that I don't think the players wages were anywhere near the same, as said above pre bosman.

[Eyrie]

Because we could expect to take in decent money when a player transferred out pre-Bosman ruling. Post Bosman, the power now lies with the player.

For example, we sold Paul Wright to finance the Keith Wright deal.

[I'm_cabbaged]

For example, we sold Paul Wright to finance the Keith Wright deal.

Now that would've been a strike force!!

[Wheat Hound]

That sounds right,though to my recollection we didn't make any money back from those players.

1 million quid for Jacko from Celtc, oneill about 200k fae coventry (to stop him leaving for nought on a bosman) crunchie on a free to falkirk and Keith in a swap with rougier to raith

[pacorosssco]

In the early nineties,in the space of a couple of seasons,hibs had a tremendous attacking quartet,macalaistar,Darren Jackson,Keith wright and Michael o'neil.
the combined transfer fees dougie cromb and the then board paid was close to £1.5 million ,how was it possible to pay such a huge sum in transfer fees yet twenty years later we can't find £30k for Liam Craig?
flumoxed!

bosman for sure is the main reason but there was more sponsorship money in league then . we wouldn't lose a player to the old division 1 in england for example and players earned a fraction of what they do now.

[NORTHERNHIBBY]

No sure that this is just a Hibs thing, Ask any team in the SPL to put their hands on 60k and outwith Celtc most would struggle,

[allezsauzee]

No sure that this is just a Hibs thing, Ask any team in the SPL to put their hands on 60k and outwith Celtc most would struggle,

yep, I'm sure if the yams could come with that sort of cash, they'd settle their council tax bill :rolleyes:

[Viva_Palmeiras]

Transfer fee - whats that? Becoming more if a rarity post Bosman.

[1875STEVE]

1 million quid for Jacko from Celtc, oneill about 200k fae coventry (to stop him leaving for nought on a bosman) crunchie on a free to falkirk and Keith in a swap with rougier to raith

Did we not get £1m for O'Neill as well?

[Time For Heroes]

In the early nineties,in the space of a couple of seasons,hibs had a tremendous attacking quartet,macalaistar,Darren Jackson,Keith wright and Michael o'neil.
the combined transfer fees dougie cromb and the then board paid was close to £1.5 million ,how was it possible to pay such a huge sum in transfer fees yet twenty years later we can't find £30k for Liam Craig?
flumoxed!

20 years ago i was given pocket money, today i earn a crust, things change mate. 20 years ago fergie was close to the dole, things change. Hibs are finacially sound, thats much better than 20 years ago... long may it contonue, we are a well run club...

[GlenrothesHibee]

That was really my first memories of being a hibs fan. I remember kicking a ball around with my pals pretending i was Micheal O'Neil. Good times

[Renfrew_Hibby]

I've wondered about this before. Like round about 1990 Dunfermline shelled out about £400K on the Hungarian internationalist Kozma and clubs like Motherwell, St.Mirren or Falkirk would regularly shell out £100K to £300K on players. 25 years later when it cost about 5 times as much to enter a ground yet clubs actually stumping up a transfer fee of even £50K are very few and far between!

[Peevemor]

I've wondered about this before. Like round about 1990 Dunfermline shelled out about £400K on the Hungarian internationalist Kozma and clubs like Motherwell, St.Mirren or Falkirk would regularly shell out £100K to £300K on players. 25 years later when it cost about 5 times as much to enter a ground yet clubs actually stumping up a transfer fee of even £50K are very few and far between!
The chances were that if a club shelled out say £200k+ for a player, they would get some if that money back when they sold him on (or maybe even make a profit). Either that or the player would stay at the club for a lot longer than happens these days.


In addition, more money circulated between the clubs. Free transfers were only for players that were crap or past it. Most of the time there would be at least a nominal fee when a player changed clubs - this is no longer the case.

[Keith_M]

I have a much simpler explanation.


You get what you pay for.


Players nowadays are free or almost free because most of our current squad are not fit to lace the boots of the likes of Michael O'Neill or Keith Wright.

[LeighLoyal]

Did we not get £1m for O'Neill as well?



Leicester offered 1m but Lexo knocked it back, we later got £300k from Coventry. I think that's what we paid Dundee U, maybe 250k to get him. A player was an investment back then, you put them on 3 or 4 year deals and knew you'd be getting something back if they were still under 30 or thereabouts.

[Stonewall]

I have a much simpler explanation.


You get what you pay for.


Players nowadays are free or almost free because most of our current squad are not fit to lace the boots of the likes of Michael O'Neill or Keith Wright.

Whilst your point about the relative qualities of the players is undoubtably true; it really isn't that simple.

[Jonnyboy]

For example, we sold Paul Wright to finance the Keith Wright deal.

Indeed we did although it's fair to say that we paid more for Keith than we received for Paul!

[jgl07]

For example, we sold Paul Wright to finance the Keith Wright deal.

If I recall Keith cost around £450,000 but Paul Wright was sold for £250,000. I can't recall where Hibs got the cash to sign Darren Jackson for around £400,000 (League Cup win proceeds?) but it was money well spent. Hibs got the best out of him and a good fee when he moved on.

Michel O'Neill and Kevin McAllister were signed largely from the proceeds of the money awarded for the 'out of contract' Pat McGinlay by the Tribunal when he moved to Celtic (£700,000?).

Did Hearts not pay circa £400,000 for Brian Hamilton who was also out contract? I don't know what Hibs received from Lothian and Borders Police for Dave Beaumont though!

Players who run their contracts down have little or no resale value in the last year since the Bosman ruling. Few Scottish Clubs are in a position to offer 5 year contracts to overcome this problem.

[DH1875]

You don't have to go back that far. Where did the money for de la Cruz come from :confused:.

[Keith_M]

Whilst your point about the relative qualities of the players is undoubtably true; it really isn't that simple.


I know, I was employing hyperbole :wink:

[Keith_M]

.............

Michel O'Neill and Kevin McAllister were signed largely from the proceeds of the money awarded for the 'out of contract' Pat McGinlay by the Tribunal when he moved to Celtic (£700,000?).

...........


Wasn't it 450K? IIRC, Hibs actually paid almost the same amount to then re-sign him.

[jgl07]

Wasn't it 450K? IIRC, Hibs actually paid almost the same amount to then re-sign him.

They did pay £450,000 to resign him but Celtic paid Hibs a lot more (pre-Bosman). They wanted to offload him despite him being their top scorer in his one full season. Alex Miler claimed that the McGinlay transfer fee was Hibs highest at that stage.

De La Cruz was a no-brainer. He was due to appear in the World Cup at the end of his first season and he was obviously likely to increase in value. Hibs made a sizable profit on that deal.

[hibs4thecup1988]

The dela cruz cash came from the Scottish cup run did it not? Also we new we would have a game in Europe that season. As someone has previously said as well he was going to play in world cup that year as well. So hibs knew they would get their cash back. Doubled it IIRC?

[Peevemor]

They did pay £450,000 to resign him but Celtic paid Hibs a lot more (pre-Bosman). They wanted to offload him despite him being their top scorer in his one full season. Alex Miler claimed that the McGinlay transfer fee was Hibs highest at that stage.

De La Cruz was a no-brainer. He was due to appear in the World Cup at the end of his first season and he was obviously likely to increase in value. Hibs made a sizable profit on that deal.

According to this, they paid £525k and we bought him back for £420k

http://www.thecelticwiki.com/page/McGinlay,+Pat

This is exactly how I remember it.

[johnbc70]

The dela cruz cash came from the Scottish cup run did it not? Also we new we would have a game in Europe that season. As someone has previously said as well he was going to play in world cup that year as well. So hibs knew they would get their cash back. Doubled it IIRC?

Still a bit of a gamble though on De La Cruz, he could easily have got injured and missed the World Cup. Was a good player though but the board did take a gamble on that deal and won. Often wondered how we scouted him in the first place and are there any more!

[Danderhall Hibs]

Still a bit of a gamble though on De La Cruz, he could easily have got injured and missed the World Cup. Was a good player though but the board did take a gamble on that deal and won. Often wondered how we scouted him in the first place and are there any more!

Stopped after we all endured watching The Tank huff and puff his way round.

[JimBHibees]

Still a bit of a gamble though on De La Cruz, he could easily have got injured and missed the World Cup. Was a good player though but the board did take a gamble on that deal and won. Often wondered how we scouted him in the first place and are there any more!

Was there not some word that the DLC money wasnt anywhere near what was originally quoted a much smaller fee than the £700k quoted..

[basehibby]

bosman for sure is the main reason but there was more sponsorship money in league then . we wouldn't lose a player to the old division 1 in england for example and players earned a fraction of what they do now.

THIS (in bold) along with the Bosman ruling is the main reason for the near disappearance of the transfer fee from Scottish Football.

The Bosman ruling means that a player is worth progressively less and less as the end of his contract approaches and once it's up he can go where he wants for free (this was NOT the case pre-Bosman). This means that, every summer, there are quite a lot of free agents available which makes the idea of paying out transfer fees a lot less attractive to clubs.

At the same time, the Bosman ruling caused a major power shift away from the clubs to the players. As a free agent, a player can negotiate a much better deal as the interested club(s) will not have to pay a transfer fee. This, along with the advent of massive satelite TV deals (to big countries anyway) and greedy agents has resulted in spiraling wages, which means that clubs like Hibs can no longer afford/no longer want to pay transfer fees as their annual budgets are fully eaten up by wage bills pushed northwards by the influence of our neighbours down south and elsewhere.

On balance the Bosman ruling was definately a good thing as players clearly lacked fundamental rights that most of us take for granted prior to it's introduction. However, the explosion in players' wages we have witnessed over the last couple of decades, as well as being downright obscene in many cases, has had the negative effect of sucking money out of the game and if you ask me they are in danger of killing the goose that lays all their golden eggs.

EG - we are always being told how much the grass roots of football is struggling but I have NEVER ONCE heard of Players Unions or similar volunteering schemes whereby the players at the peak of the game contribute a small proportion of their massive pay packets to the development of youngsters (ie giving a bit back to where they came from*) - something which would be wholly appropriate and is long overdue IMO.

* Notable exceptions exist such as GOC and others who donated a proportion of their signing on fees to Hibs Youth Development when they got their big moves.

[johnbc70]

Was there not some word that the DLC money wasnt anywhere near what was originally quoted a much smaller fee than the £700k quoted..

I think so yes, we probably inflated it so when someone came calling we could say we paid £X so you need to pay £X + £Y.

Point I was making was more about how the board at the time gambled and it paid off. I look at Claros and if I remember correctly the fee quoted for buying him which put Sevco off at the time was £500K. Now if Claros had been a superstar, and been MOM every game he played he would not be at Hibs this season. He would likely be in the EPL by now and if we had him on loan only some would have been saying why did we not take the gamble and pay the £500K for him on a 3.5 year deal and we could have sold him for £2/3M. Just so happens he is a very good player but I cannot see him gracing the EPL anytime soon so in this case we were probably right not to take that gamble and pay the transfer fee (not that we were probably even thinking about shelling out £500K on a player anyway)

Some gambles pay off handsomely like De La Cruz while others do not, just ask Alex Ferguson about Bebe.

[jgl07]

Some gambles pay off handsomely like De La Cruz while others do not, just ask Alex Ferguson about Bebe.

Hardly a fair comparison. De La Cruz was an established member of a successful international side who were sure to qualify for the world cup.

Bebe played a handful of matches in the Portugese Second Division was hawked all over Europe including PSV (on a free transfer). There were no takers and he signed in 2010 (on a free) for Vitoria in 2010. He never played for them and was signed in 2010 by United for €9 million.

He played two PL matches for United before being sent out on loan where he has played 10 matches in the last three seasons.

That has all the earmarks of 'bung' scam. Of course no journalists will ask questions of SAF because they and their news organization would be frozen out from future contact.

[Andy74]

Was there not some word that the DLC money wasnt anywhere near what was originally quoted a much smaller fee than the £700k quoted..

That's correct. We paid a fairly small fee but decent wages. That figure is nearer the total paid in fee and wages.

[brog]

Celtic are actually operating now the way Hibs & other clubs did in the 90's, ie they're going out & buying international players reasonably cheaply, putting them on long contracts & hoping to sell on for a decent profit. Right now they're hawking Izaguirre, Ambrose & Wanyama to any Prem club that's interested & of course Ki went in the summer.
The Bosman ruling is undoubtedly the main factor affecting Scottish football but the Prem has largely escaped because of the huge TV deal. Other major leagues in Europe have also benefitted ( or been spared the worst ) as Prem clubs look for slightly cheaper options. The flow from Scotland to England has dried up with English clubs now trying to buy mainly youngsters on cheap ( the Aberdeen boy to Bournemouth ) in hope of making a big profit down the road. Both Burnley & Wolves doubled their money on Fletch!
I still think there's a case to be made for speculating to accumulate but unfortunately for every U DLC there's a Pa Kujabi!

[basehibby]

Celtic are actually operating now the way Hibs & other clubs did in the 90's, ie they're going out & buying international players reasonably cheaply, putting them on long contracts & hoping to sell on for a decent profit. Right now they're hawking Izaguirre, Ambrose & Wanyama to any Prem club that's interested & of course Ki went in the summer.
The Bosman ruling is undoubtedly the main factor affecting Scottish football but the Prem has largely escaped because of the huge TV deal. Other major leagues in Europe have also benefitted ( or been spared the worst ) as Prem clubs look for slightly cheaper options. The flow from Scotland to England has dried up with English clubs now trying to buy mainly youngsters on cheap ( the Aberdeen boy to Bournemouth ) in hope of making a big profit down the road. Both Burnley & Wolves doubled their money on Fletch!
I still think there's a case to be made for speculating to accumulate but unfortunately for every U DLC there's a Pa Kujabi!

Re top bit - that's a massive exageration - Celtic probably spend as much in one transfer window as Hibs did in the whole of the 90s!

Re bottom bit - I agree - that's part of football IMO and one criticism I've got of Hibs is the seeming reluctance to ever take that sort of gamble - to be fair though we've been through so many managers in recent years that there must have been significant doubt about backing the judgement of any given incumbent until he had proved himself worthy of it (in the same way as say McLeish had before being allowed to splash the dosh on DLC).

[brog]

Celtic are actually operating now the way Hibs & other clubs did in the 90's, ie they're going out & buying international players reasonably cheaply, putting them on long contracts & hoping to sell on for a decent profit. Right now they're hawking Izaguirre, Ambrose & Wanyama to any Prem club that's interested & of course Ki went in the summer.
The Bosman ruling is undoubtedly the main factor affecting Scottish football but the Prem has largely escaped because of the huge TV deal. Other major leagues in Europe have also benefitted ( or been spared the worst ) as Prem clubs look for slightly cheaper options. The flow from Scotland to England has dried up with English clubs now trying to buy mainly youngsters on cheap ( the Aberdeen boy to Bournemouth ) in hope of making a big profit down the road. Both Burnley & Wolves doubled their money on Fletch!
I still think there's a case to be made for speculating to accumulate but unfortunately for every U DLC there's a Pa Kujabi!

Re top bit - that's a massive exageration - Celtic probably spend as much in one transfer window as Hibs did in the whole of the 90s!

Re bottom bit - I agree - that's part of football IMO and one criticism I've got of Hibs is the seeming reluctance to ever take that sort of gamble - to be fair though we've been through so many managers in recent years that there must have been significant doubt about backing the judgement of any given incumbent until he had proved himself worthy of it (in the same way as say McLeish had before being allowed to splash the dosh on DLC).

Of course you're correct but I was talking about the principle rather than the values. Even Celtc fans are finding it hard to believe that players from Korea, Honduras or Kenya only ever wanted to wear the hoops & these players are being bought as much for their resale value as for their ability to perform in our league. I think Celtc's (temporary) refusal to sell Hooper could backfire big time however, he could be their Andy Driver!