Chapter 840: Futures
I stood at my window and looked at pitch 2, where 2 of the academy lads were doing crossing on their own at 4 in the afternoon with nobody watching them.
"No," I said. "I would not."
"Then that is your answer and I will ring Lisbon in the morning."
"Ring them tonight," I said. "And Dougie, be polite. September is still September. I have still got 20 minutes with the boy and his father and I am still going."
"Right," Dougie said. "Now the good one, and you are going to have to trust me for about 90 seconds."
"Go on."
"Rodrygo Goes."
"Santos."
"Santos, 17, and before you say it, yes, Real Madrid agreed a deal for him on the 15th of June and it was announced and it was 45 million euros."
"So he is Madrid’s."
"He is not anybody’s until it is signed," Dougie said, "and it is not signed, and it has not been signed for 7 weeks, and I have spent 5 days finding out why."
I sat down.
"Why?"
"Because 5 of that 45 was going to his people and the Brazilian tax authority has had a look at how it was structured, and there is a second set of lawyers involved now, and Santos have gone quiet on Madrid since the 19th of July."
"Dougie, Real Madrid do not lose players."
"Real Madrid do not lose players when Real Madrid are paying attention," he said. "They have sacked a manager, hired Lopetegui, sold nobody, and they are 3 weeks from a Super Cup they are playing against us. Nobody at that club has picked the telephone up about a 17-year-old in Brazil since the middle of July."
Here is the number.
30 million euros. 26 and a half million pounds.
Paid to Santos, clean. No agent structure. No bonus to the boy’s camp. That is why it is 30 and not 45.
And he does not come.
He is 17 years old and FIFA do not let a 17-year-old move country, and he turns 18 in January and he still does not come, because Santos want him for the season and I want him to have the season.
He stays in São Paulo until July 2019. He plays 40 matches for Santos in a Brazilian league. He turns 18 in Brazil, in his own house, with his own family, and he arrives at Beckenham next summer at 18 with 120 senior appearances behind him.
"You are buying a player you cannot pick for 11 months," Dougie said.
"Yes."
"And you are going to be asked about it on Sunday and you are going to have to explain it to 3 different men with microphones."
"Yes."
"Danny." A pause. "I have been in this 30 years and I have never done a deal for a boy I will not see for a year. Tell me why."
I told him why.
Because on the 15th of June I could not have got him. On the 15th of June he was a 45 million euro Real Madrid player and I was in a hotel in Voronezh working out how to beat Iran.
And on the 2nd of August there is a fortnight where a set of lawyers in São Paulo have made Real Madrid stop returning calls, and I have got 26 and a half million pounds and nobody else in Europe is looking, because everybody else in Europe read the announcement in June and crossed him off.
Windows like that are open for about 9 days and they do not come back round.
I have had 2 in 14 months. Serge Gnabry off Arsenal in January 2017 was the first one.
"Do it," I said.
"You have not asked me what he is."
"I watched 40 minutes of him in April, Dougie."
"April."
"April. On a laptop, in a Portakabin, at 1 in the morning, and I did not tell you because there was no point telling you about a boy that Barcelona and Real Madrid were both in for."
[RODRYGO GOES. AGE 17. CA 108. PA 179.]
I have put a number over 175 on 4 footballers in 3 years. I have got 2 of them.
1 is 18 and in Lisbon and about to cost somebody 53 and a half million pounds, and 1 is 19 and sat on a sofa in Getafe doing nothing at all for 6 more days because I told him to.
Tk. Tk. Tk. Sarah on that corridor. You can hear those shoes from the car park.
She came in at half 5 with the contracts.
Not the big ones. Dougie is doing those and Dougie will take a fortnight over them.
The other ones.
"Olise," she said. "Scholarship expires in July and he is 16, so he cannot sign professional terms until his 17th birthday in December."
"So what have you got?"
"Improved scholarship terms today, a written commitment from the club, and a professional contract on the table the morning he turns 17." She put the sheet down. "And I have doubled the family’s relocation help because his mother has been driving him from Hammersmith since he was 11 and nobody at this club has ever asked her about it."
I looked at that sheet.
"Sarah."
"Do not thank me. It is 6,000 pounds and it should have been done 3 years ago."
Tk. Next sheet.
"Nya Kirby. 17. He can sign professional and he is going to. 3 years, and the number is a proper one."
"What was it?"
"£600 a week."
"And now?"
She told me, and it is nobody’s business but his, and it is about 9 times what it was, and it is still less than 2 of our substitutes earn.
"Antoine Semenyo, 3 years. Tyrick Mitchell, 4. Connor Blake, 4, and Dougie is doing that one himself because the agent has already asked for a release clause and Dougie wants to say no to his face.
"Eberechi Eze is a Dougie one, because Eze is a first team player now and it is a first team number.
"And Ellis Cartwright."
"Go on."
"He signed a 1 year deal on the 23rd of July, 5 days after we released him, and he has since scored a penalty in a shootout in front of 38,000 people and appeared in the 8th minute of the most watched programme in this country." Sarah put the last sheet down. "3 years, Daniel. Today. Before somebody who watched that programme rings his mother."
Nathan came in at 6 with a tablet and would not sit down.
"You are going to want to see this and I am going to need 4 minutes."
"Nathan, I have got a squad meeting."
"Wembley," he said, and put the tablet on my desk.
COMMUNITY SHIELD. CRYSTAL PALACE ALLOCATION: SOLD OUT.
"When?"
"Tuesday. 4 days ago. 33,000 in 11 hours and the Football Association have come back to us twice asking whether we want more, and we have taken more twice, and we have sold those as well." He was scrolling. "And that is the Shield. The league is the thing.
"Wembley for the season. 90,000 a game. We have shifted 61,000 season tickets."
I looked at him.
"61?"
"61,400 as of 5 o’clock this afternoon, and 9,000 of those are people who have never had a season ticket at this club because there has never been a seat for them." He turned the tablet round again. "The waiting list was 31,000 in June. It is 44,000 now, and every one of those is somebody who has been told there is a 90,000 seat stadium and still cannot get in."
Tk. He put a second sheet down.
"And the shirt. It has done 190,000 units in 11 days worldwide and Adidas have put a third production run on. Nobody at Adidas modelled a third run."
"Nathan."
"I know."
"Say the thing you came in to say."
He put the tablet down.
"Crystal Palace are going to earn more money this season than in the previous 6 put together," Nathan said. "I have done this job for 9 years at 3 clubs and this is the first time I have got to say that sentence to anybody, and I wanted to say it out loud to a person before I drove home."
The other thing I got that day, and I got it off Marcus because I do not have any of it on my own phone.
They had made a picture out of it.
A photograph of Michael Olise in Pennsylvania with his hands on his head after Ulreich saved that shot, and underneath it somebody had written HE IS 16 and nothing else, and by Thursday afternoon it had been shared 340,000 times.
Under it, in the replies, about 4,000 people arguing about James Tomkins.
Every single one of them wanted him to go and get a shirt somewhere.
They had all worked it out, the same way Thierry Henry worked it out on a television on Tuesday night, and the top reply had 11,000 likes and said: he has got 5 centre halves and a 19 year old, tomkins deserves to play, let him go and wish him well.
Marcus was watching my face.
"They trust you," he said.
"They should not trust anybody with 130 million pounds."
"They do though." He took the phone back. "There is a lad on there with 40,000 followers who has done a spreadsheet of every player you have sold and what they went for and what they are worth now, and he does it after every window, and he calls it the Walsh Index, and he has got every single one of them right so far.
"I check it, boss. So does Dougie."
I signed 6 sets of papers that afternoon and none of them will ever be reported anywhere.
An improved scholarship for a 16-year-old and 6,000 pounds towards his mother’s petrol.
A first professional contract for a 17-year-old who has been at this club since he was 12, and who put a penalty in the bottom left corner in Pennsylvania and did not look at the bench, and whose father came in with him and asked me twice whether it was really 3 years.
And a 3 year deal for a lad we let go 8 weeks ago.
That is 26 and a half million pounds on a boy in Brazil I will not see until next July, and about 4 million pounds on 6 lads who are already in the building, and on the 9th of August the newspapers are going to write about the first one.
Bzz.
Emma. 17:52.
Have you rung your mother?
Bzz.
Danny. Episode 6. Ring your mother.