It would be no surprise if top Premier League clubs had a business model to buy young talent, knowing full well the players would unlikely make the first team, with the whole intention on making a profit.
It would be an unspoken understanding, but not something clubs would really want to advertise, for fear of being questioned ethically, and through the danger of alienating possible future purchases.
Therefore, Manchester City may not be thrilled with FC Twente’s technical director Jan van Halst. The Dutch club have Enes Unal and Yaw Yeboah on loan from City next season.
Dutch website Soccer News quote Van Halst as saying: “They buy their selection of top players and they suffer losses, because you write off the huge transfer fees which can sometimes be 30, 40 and 50 million.
“But then you try on the other hand to create a kind of profit by getting young talents. The club really knows already that they probably won’t get into the first team in the future.”
Van Halst’s believes that Twente offer Manchester City a platform to advertise these players, and they can then grow and turn a profit.
Lacking a little football romance isn’t it.
In all reality, it’s probably not quite so cold in the vast majority of cases and there’s always a hope, and occasionally an expectation, that the players will reach Manchester City’s first team.
