so we payed 9M for the full rights of Berardi, then sold half for 4.5M and now have an agreement to buy his other half for 15M. 19.5M spent on full rights of Berardi not bad considering we got Isla for the same and that if he were english with a season like he had last year his price would be 60M, but also not excellent
Zaza, we payed 3.5M to Sampdoria to sign him, then sold him to Sassuolo for 5M and bought his half for 2.5M. last summer we sold his half for 7.5M. if we pay the 15M for him that would mean we spent a total of 8.5M to acquire him which is also a solid deal IMO.
total spent on both 28M
You forget the time value of money and you don't adjust the fees for risk.
For example (about time value of money), 5 million in 2012 is worth more than 5 million in 2014, not only because of inflation (that would be easy to adjust for), but in particular because these money could have been invested in something else in the meanwhile (other players, a better salary budget, investments into sponsor facilities, stadium facilities, marketing etc. etc.), other things that could net us some return, either directly in cash or indirectly by better sporting results. How much this annual return rate is, is very hard to measure in a football club, but it is still at factor i think you should have in mind when evaluate a transfer.
About risk, let's say Berardi played shit this season and didn't turn out to be more than an ordinary player (or if he got a long term or career ending injury) - then we could refrain from buying the rest of him. This would not be possible had we already bought his full rights and just loaned him out. So Sassoulo is taking part of the risk here and for that they have to be compensated by a higher buy out clause than if we had already bought him in the summer.
The situation right now is exactly that we have these kind of deals lined up for several young players (Berardi, Zaza, Gabbiadini, until last summer also Immobile etc.), and instead of having to spend, let's for simplicity say 10m on each, we pay 5m for their halfs and can buy the other half for 10m or own nothing but a clause of 15m, and can then buy the one (or two) who turns out to be worth anything, while having cashed in on the other already or having 50 % left that could net a bit aswell. This way we spread the risk, and instead of betting it all on one single talent, this allows us to keep track of a large number of promising players.
There are more to take into account, my point is just that it's not as simple as just the nominal total price. I think we have knitted together an excellent deal for Berardi (also a good deal for Sassoulo, but there aren't necesarrily only one winner in a deal) and a pretty fine one for Zaza aswell, although is think his clause is a bit too high. Have in mind, that we still don't know whether they will turn out to be fantastic or decent to mediocre players - even if we have some kind of presumption. And you can be sure of one thing, for each passing month, the probability of us making the right choices with these players gets higher.
I would much rather choose whether or not to buy Berardi next summer than having had to do it two summers ago - even if he was already pretty hyped after that Serie B season of his - also when taking into account the price we have to pay next summer is higher.
The reason for these preferences of mine are that i will have a better idea about his potential and the probability of him reaching it at that point in time. Another plus with these deals is the fact that we are in complete control of the situation, by ownning half the player or having a clause we don't risk some foreign rich team coming in from the side should Berardi or the like explode (Another Veratti-situation for example). This also has some value, and we aren't getting that for free. Everything has a price.
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yeah i dont see how 19.5m on a player is a good deal. that's typical deal for juve.
To conclude on the wall of text i wrote before, i rather spend 19,5 million on a player that turns out to be good, than buying the same player for 10 million but also two other players for 10 million each, that turned out to be shit, because i in that point of time weren't able to tell which one of them would be good enough for Juve.
EDIT: It's pretty simple really. The management is trying to minimize wasting money on flops, and lowering the risk of that happening has a price that will be reflected by the price we have to pay for the players with higher probability of being the right choices. Real Madrid weren't paying that ridicoulus price for Ronaldo only because of his value as a player, but also because it was close to risk-free, since they could be almost sure he was the right choice to get.