Incidental football interlude.
While we're all becoming experts on bankers and their capacity for losing money, another bubble which has so far continued to fail to burst has been the football one, or at least that involving Premier League clubs. Managers down the years have paid extortionate prices for players who have overnight apparently turned rubbish, but surely the worst deal in recent memory has to be Liverpool's purchase of Robbie Keane for £20.3 million, a total which he was never worth a fraction of, only to sell him back to Tottenham 6 months later for £12 million. Keane comprehensively failed to win a place in the team, not helped by deciding to go to a club managed by someone notorious for his whims, inexplicable substitution decisions, and downright illogical squad rotation. A loss of £8,000,000 might not be so bad if Keane had not gone back to Spurs, but like a dog that has to go back to his basket eventually even if he's befouled it, return like the prodigal he has. In effect, it was a loan deal in which Spurs have ended up at least £5 million better off, once "add-ons" have been taken into account. That's the kind of killing that the bankers would have demanded a bonus for.
Labels: economics, football, Robbie Keane, transfer deadline day
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