Co-Ownership

Can anyone explain this to me and its dis/advantages??

Getting players for a cheaper price, but it can get risky imo.

its like a foot in the door aswell...

see a young starlet for a smaller team ... co own him for a small fee and no-one will snap him up from you but he can still develop in the smaller teams etc... while also not commiting yourself to buying him

Getting players for a cheaper price, but it can get risky imo.

imo??????????

in my opinion

It's halfway between a buy and a loan.

What happens is: You buy 50% of a player's "rights" and 50% stays with the current club. Other teams may be able to buy these "rights" off you (if it's 2 years remaining on the co-ownership deal and as long as there is no "first-option" clause, I think). You (or the other team in the co-ownership) is also able to buy the other's 50% rights to own the player outright as well. The wages are split.

At the end of the co-ownership period (1-2 years), if neither has opted to take 100% rights, then a blind auction is conducted. A blind auction is basically where two parties put in a bid for the other's 50% rights but neither knows what the other's bid is until both have put bids in. I believe the Italian FA acts as the mediator here in real-life. The one with the higher bid pays the other team their bid and gets the player outright, 100%.

Advantages - buying

If you are a big club, then you can buy 50% rights and keep the player at the same club. So in effect it's somewhat "buy-and-loan" but both teams have 50% rights. So it's useful for young players where you are unsure if you are able to find good loans for them later but they're not good enough for your first-team - yet.

If you are a big club but are unsure about the player's true potential (i.e. has a poor attitude but may be able to be tutored), then you may endure a loss but at least it's only 50% of the loss, rather than the full 100%.

If you are a small club, it can be a useful way of getting cash as a player's value may appreciate.

If you are a small club, it can be a useful way of getting players on loan but having some leverage because you may get to keep them in the end, as their value might depreciate.

For any team, it is also useful as a buy-and-try sort of deal, although I don't think the AI does these.

Disadvantages - buying

Because you only hold 50% of the rights, it means someone else does have some sort of leverage on the player.

Blind auctions are very risky. If you really want a player, the chances are the 50% + 50% deal is going to be much more expensive than if you had done a straight 100% deal (consider if the player turns out to be a wonderkid - you will end up overpaying for 50% rights which makes less economic sense).

Advantages - selling

If a team is willing to pay for more than half the player's current value and you believe the player will not get that much better, then teams may consider selling rather than risk losing him for free or cheap when their contract begins to expire.

If you are a small team and are unlikely to keep the player anyway long-term, then getting 50% of his current value now could well be a good deal. If you play the blind auction well, you might even be able to get him back at a profit and sell 100% of his rights!

If you are a big team, this is a good way of enticing players to teams that don't really want to "develop players for you" for essentially free (minus wages). Giving them the chance to keep the player is better value for them.

Disadvantages - selling

You lose 50% of their rights.

You risk losing the player outright - so only sell 50% rights where you are more sure you are going to end up selling them anyway. If there's a significant chance you'll want him somewhere in the future, then loan, not co-own.

------------------------------------

So who is it useful for? In general, potential wonderkids and youngsters who have outgrown the Under-20s but are not quite good enough for your team, but will be useful for many other teams.

For example, I've just sold 50% rights on a 22-year-old centre-back of mine. He's a decent player - 14-15s in all the correct attributes and a decent attitude, but he reeks of "average". He's been on loan several times and done well wherever he's gone. His value at the time was £4.4m (I estimated that was a tad overrated - £3.5m made more sense to me). Juventus and Verona, mid-table Serie A teams, both tabled £1.8m co-ownership bids and I negotiated both to £2m. He chose Verona over Juventus as he'd already been to Verona on loan and they were a favoured club of his. They were the only 2 bids.

If there had been a loan bid, I would have been wary because he would be 23 at the end of the season and I'd be negotiating a new contract so I wouldn't lose him on a free, meaning his wages would go up and I'd end up paying them and it would drive future loan clubs away due to his higher wages.

So in this case, even if there had been a loan, I would have done the co-ownership instead. Let him develop at "exciting" Verona (challenging for Europe) instead of warming my bench, and hopefully his value would go up. I'm not expecting him to develop further although I'm not ruling it out - but I expect to sell him in the future. In this case, I may as well cut my losses and see what I can get out from this co-ownership deal. I'm sure I can outbid Verona and sell him later, but I suspect I may simply bid £1.5m - my expected value of him (£2m + £1.5m = £3.5m) and see where things go. I'm not opposed to keeping him although I'd rather sell. That is really the key point about co-ownership.

An alternative scenario: You are Inter and you spot a potential wonderkid at Serie B side Triestina, but you are not sure/don't know if he'll develop better with you/prefer him to play first-team football, which he is getting plenty of at Triestina. You buy 50% co-ownership rights with a first-option clause over 2 years meaning that you can watch him develop for 2 years. If he turns out to be good, then you get him. If he turns out to be trash, then cut your losses. With the clause, no other team can bid for him.

For Triestina, in this case, they may be struggling for cash so this money could be useful (and the reduced wages). They may see he is a potential wonderkid and won't be able to hold on to him anyway, so the bid is considered. They may see he is actually unlikely to develop at all so it's free cash for them. They may be wary about the clause since nobody else can drive up the bid by starting a bidding war. They'll note that since it will be agreed he will stay at Triestina, they will be able to keep the player and let him do a job for them, rather than finding another player to replace him.

So then if i buy a player through co-ownership who will he play 4 and what are the um... specifications which allows you to make a co-ownership???

So then if i buy a player through co-ownership who will he play 4 and what are the um... specifications which allows you to make a co-ownership???

AFAIK, only in Italy you can co-own a player. When you bid for someone you can choose in which team is he going to play (is current or yours).

AFAIK, only in Italy you can co-own a player. When you bid for someone you can choose in which team is he going to play (is current or yours).

So it has to be between italian clubs???

Yes, you can only co-own players in Italy, not even from say an English club to Italy

between 2 Italian clubs only

Yes, only between Italian teams.

If a non-Italian team wishes to purchase a co-owned player, that manager must negotiate separate 50% deals with the corresponding clubs, which can be a pain since both sides will value the player differently.

x42bn6, that was a great post on the pros and cons.

Although I understand it myself, I'll be pointing anyone else who doesn't to this thread

No problem.

Could anyone confirm the wages are split, by the way? Can't be bothered to load my game to figure out.

As you may realise, I don't do co-ownership very often as usually by then you'd know if a player is good or bad or not. If he's bad, then it may be simply better to sell him at a lower price than prolong the sale (risking depreciation, forced to sign for higher wages, or a Bosman). If he's good, then why do you wish to lose 50% of the rights?

There are older examples - for example, Marco Borriello has been shunted out of co-ownership deals in real-life, but he's 27 now (and not that good, mind you). I'm not sure the AI does these deals nor am I sure it really makes sense to do them.

So yeah, I understand there are uses and Italian teams do it a lot in real-life. I could see why mid-table clubs would love to do these, and I could see lower-league teams loving it too. For richer clubs, not so much as what's a £1m loss to you? Stuff like that.

Can anyone explain the Bosman ruling???

Can anyone explain the Bosman ruling???

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling