“Why are we negotiating, Edu just needs to pay the asking price” was heard continually throughout the Declan Rice transfer saga.
West Ham’s initial asking price was apparently £120m, cash up front. Through negotiations, Arsenal are paying £100m upfront with £5m add ons.
Negotiating has saved the club £20m upfront.
I always felt an offer in and around £100m would get the deal done, and to achieve that Arsenal had to begin their bidding below this figure. At around £80m.
Likewise, I think West Ham were always targeting that £100m mark, which is why they started at £120m. That would give themselves space to be negotiated down.
One club starts at £80m, the other at £120m, and they end up meeting (almost) in the middle.
I’ve watched enough Pawn Stars to know how often “meet in the middle” ends up the result of negotiations, and that is what happened here.
What I find funny is those West Ham twitter accounts that kept talking about “£120m and not a penny less” are now celebrating David Sullivan for negotiating up Arsenal’s offer to £100m.
They seem to have forgotten that the asking price was £120m, and that they said they should not sell himfor a penny less for.
Arsenal negotiated West Ham down to save themselves £20m
Also funny is those Man City fans who were “delighted to have helped” West Ham earn £100m. They seem to think that Man City only bided to push the Arsenal price up, and it is just to this bidding that Arsenal spent £100m.
This isn’t eBay lads where you get a pal to bid for the shirt you’re selling to up the price.
The Arsenal negotiating team also agreed favourable payment terms.
Starting points for payments seemed to be that West Ham wanted £75m in 2023/24, witht he remaining £25m paid during the 2024/25 tax year. Two payments, with the bulk upfront and the full £100m paid up within almost 12 months.
Reports were that Arsenal’s first offer proposed the guaranteed portion of the fee be paid over the course of four years – payments due in 2023, 2024, 2025 & 2026. £25m a year.
In the end, the deal was agreed for the fee to be paid across three years – 2023, 2024 and 2025, with equal payments of around £33.3m paid during each period.
We have been able to spread the debt over 3 years (instead of West Ham’s original demand of 2), and just £33.3m being paid this summer.
Paying just £33.3m this summer rather than £75m basically enabled us to sign Jurrien Timber.
Of course, West Ham fans will say “Arsenal wanted to pay £25m for 4 years and we got them to agree to £33.3m for 3 years”. And again, this shows why it is important to negotiate.
West Ham went in with 2-years payment terms, Arsenal responded with 4-years, and they met in the middle with 3 years.
So we have £120m asking price, a counter off of £80m and a meet in the middle of £100m. 2-years payment terms requested, 4-years offered, 3-years agreed.
Both sides got the fee and payment terms they probably wanted to begin with. The rest of it is just negotiating tactics.
Arsenal negotiating team, which includes Richard Garlick (Edu has nothing to do with it), have decades of top level corporate and sporting negotiating experience. Man City’s interest would not have forced them into “overpaying”.
In the end, Arsenal signed their man for the top end of what they were willing to pay, West Ham sold their captain and best player.
I still find it odd to read some West Ham fans celebrating the sale of Rice. It probably just shows that all they care about is Twitter clout, and not their team progressing. It will be interesting to see what they do with the money (and how many others follow Rice out the door).
And that concludes one of the most boring transfer sagas in Premier League History.
Declan Rice of Arsenal and England.
Keenos
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 