One Agent's Mad PlanTake one struggling Championship club, a crippling wage bill of
£8million a year, then bring them a host of new stars to get them
promoted to the Barclays Premier League. All for 100 quid.
Doncaster
Rovers are attempting to change the landscape of British football,
turning the Keepmoat Stadium into the most prolific bring-and-buy sale
in history.
International stars will come and go quickly, sold on
to the highest bidder as Doncaster provide the shop window for some of
Europe’s disaffected or disillusioned players.
Rovers fans will
cheer on new heroes from Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Lorient and Marseille,
barely getting used to their names before they are moved on for big
money.
Pascal Chimbonda, Herita Ilunga and Chris Kirkland have already been on the Keepmoat conveyor belt, but that’s just the start.
Fabien
Robert, brother of former Newcastle winger Laurent, Saint-Etienne left
back Sylvain Monsoreau, France Under 20 defender Lamine Kone and
Argentina midfielder Sebastian Dubarbier will soon be on show.
El-Hadji
Diouf, a free agent after leaving Blackburn, and former Real Madrid and
Lyon midf ielder Mahamadou Diarra are also in talks with a team second
from bottom of the Championship. So how is it all coming about?
Well,
Doncaster have a watertight contract for the next two years with the
most notorious — and arguably most successful — agent in British
football. Willie McKay is the middle man acting on behalf of Doncaster,
charging them just £100 a week for his services, having lodged his plan
with the FA on September 27.
The FA’s financial regulation
officer Andrew Penn wrote back to McKay in a letter dated October 6
accepting his proposals and rubber-stamping the Donny Dream.
That
contract with Doncaster and the FA means that nobody can come in or out
of the Keepmoat Stadium for the next two years unless McKay says so,
although he says manager Dean Saunders has the power of veto.
McKay
makes no bones about his business model, taking advantage of unlimited
international loans and working the European transfer market to maximum
effect.
He intends to make money — serious money — out of
Doncaster and in return give them the best group of players their 10,000
loyal supporters have ever seen. They just won’t be there for long.
There
will be agreements with clubs all over Europe, borrowing their troubled
players and giving them the platform to perform at the highest level
again.
Donny will pay a maximum of £2,000 a week towards a
player’s existing salary, relying on the parent club to pay the
difference in their contract during their loan.
McKay said:
‘Take Herita Ilunga as an example. He’s on £26,000 a week at West Ham,
not getting a game and they can’t get him a move. I called the
joint-chairman David Sullivan and offered £1,000 a week to take Ilunga
on loan. David laughed and said, “Make me a sensible offer”, so I said,
“OK, £500”.
‘Anyway, eventually we agree the deal on £2,000 a week
and West Ham make up the rest of his wages. We take him at Doncaster,
who are no threat to West Ham, and give him a shop window to perform by
playing every week.
‘If he plays well and I get him a move, say
to Turkey for £5m, then I’ll reach an agreement with David Sullivan
about the fee West Ham will receive, plus my commission, less his full
£26,000-a-week salary for the period he was at Doncaster.’
As well as benefiting from the player’s performances, Rovers will receive a cut of the transfer fee.
Read
more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2051618/What-agent-Willie-McKay-doing-Doncaster-Rovers.html#ixzz1bOry1uTP
Comments
Blimey! He's never heard of that old motto "KISS - Keep Ot Simple, Stupid"!
Fantastical plan - will it work?
hows that different from what really happens now??
Agents have been running football for a long long time - Just now you've got a bonified money grabbing life sucker leach of society football agent running a club
I don't think a team of loan players will work and can't see this working out for them. However, they're not stupid there and have got a club from the conference to the championship in 5 years or so. Could be interesting, Kirkland is a great 'keeper for the championship.
The question ought to be how did Doncaster Rovers get from the Conference to The Championship and land themselves with a crippling wage bill of £8m a year?
Traore and Faye only i think- both Dowie signings via McKay.
Horrible to think there are clubs sold out like this. Enough to put some people off the beautiful game.
Have a team of unsettled, unhappy brats. Sounds fun.
Mind with this vote undermining the amount of compensation for young players, youth football from the championship down has been severely undermined. Maybe Doncaster are the future. I can see Championship teams becoming 'B' Teams of the big premiership clubs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulfletcher/2011/10/football_league_votes_in_favou.html#299200 : Youth overhaul will damage football league.
I read this in the Daily Mail yesterday and it solved a puzzle and it does disturb me . However , it is probably the inevitable consequence of the ultra Capitalist model which affects football these days. One of the disturbing factors for me is Mckay's attitude to the club he basically he says noone supports Donny in the town and that the club has no value.
I had tipped Donny to drop this season , it is remarkable that they have sustained CCC football for the fourth season on their attendances . They will know what the consequences of relegation are especially with some of their more illustrious near neighbours like Huddersfield and the two Sheffields being below them in our Division and teams similar to them like Rotherham and Scunthorpe being in lower Divisions also. Ironically they would not be of much use to Mckay in League One so I guess he does have a stake in them maintaining their status.
I had earlier wondered how Doncaster had got close to signing people like Chimbonda and Illunga.
How does this square with the FIFA fair play regulations ?
Cricket went this way already with overseas players signing up for a month at a time for 20/20 games. The practice has now been abandoned. How can a fan get a feeling for his team when it is forever changing in personnel ?
I suppose though that if my team was facing relegation, any potential solution would be attractive to avoid it happening. At the very least it might put a stop to badge kissing and dubious statements expressing loyalty and devotion by newly signed players who would definitely be in it only for the money,
Donny's owner is a plastic surgeon. Perhaps he can weild the scalpel and design a composite player face ... then no-one will really know who is playing for whom.
(Takes coat from hook)