The British Transfer Thread

just implement a global football tax on transfer fees and give the proceeds to charity. Simplez

You and I would enjoy a litany of beers in said pub Brumbys. 

Wikileaks has been interesting over the last 2 days eh!

Actually a pretty awesome idea CT

I wonder if FIFA could do it (obviously whether they would is a different question). Even a 1% tax would still be a substantial amount of money given the inflation in fees in recent years 

It's a very naïve, first-year uni student kind of sentiment though, isn't it?

But you're right, the problem isn't with football and footballers (only the very small minority of whom, incidentally, make extremely large sums of money, and only within a very limited time span), but with our society, and us as individuals within it. We have enough resources right now to end global poverty and prevent people from starving to death - but there is no political will, or incentive, to do that. And that's not going to change without a revolution in the Western world, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Stoke sign Joe Allen from Liverpool.

BREAKING | Stoke City are delighted to announce the signing of Joe Allen from @LFC on a 5-year deal #SCFC pic.twitter.com/3XqQ8EFyyk

— Stoke City FC (@stokecity) July 25, 2016

I don't think a revolution is needed - it just requires people at an individual level to make a change in their lives, make positive choices . (Though getting enough people to make these changes is tough - such as the simple thing of reducing how much animal products you consume, maybe a revolution is easier :P)

Fan culture makes it tough for fans to decouple from clubs even though they are treated as cash cows (more so in some leagues than others) with exorbitant tickets and membership fees, ever changing merchandise, broadcasting subscription fees and linking that to fans desires for a successful team

This is kind of what I'm talking about (leaving football aside). It's hard enough to get a single individual to make very simple choices that would improve his or her life, let alone the lives of those less fortunate - and part of that problem is that individual choices can only take you so far before you hit the brick wall of political, economic, and social institutions which have been entrenched for decades. So making this change on a collective level becomes even harder, and until it gets so bad that a critical mass of people starts thinking 'it can't get any worse than this', significant change won't be happening. And I think we're a long, long, way away from that.

Which is sad in itself - because I do think we've reached a critical mass where enough people realise that the way the world works (i.e. money first, everything else after) is really wrong, yet the allure of personal gain in monetary terms is still enough for us not to give a crap. 

I actually think that individual choices can make a big difference, enough individual choices will move political, economic and social institutions - two things, the will of individuals to make those choices and informing individuals on the benefits of making those choices are the difficult things.

Transfer fees are obscene but they aren't anywhere near as offensive as some of the issues in football: racism, homophobia, sexism, Qatar 2022, CR7's fake tan, etc etc

Nothing is going to change as people are too selfish and only care about themselves.

Just look at the social media.

way off topic, but in a lot of ways the world is a much better place today than at almost any point in history. Globally connected media means we are more aware of bad stuff, but overall across the globe rates of absolute poverty, violence, and preventable diseases are dropping and life expectancy and literacy rates are increasing. The whole concept of human rights didn't even exist as few hundred years ago and now they are safeguarded to some extent for a greater proportion of humanity than ever before. 

Yes there are serious issues we face as a species: damage we have done to the environment, rising inequality, reactionary social and political movements from ISIS to the far right in the West. But make no mistake, the idea that things are universally bad and getting worse is just not true.

For example: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015...

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/201...

https://ourworldindata.org/democratisation/

http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/li...

But good news stories don't grab the headlines like bad news does...

Are you being ironic here Leg? Social media has change communication like nothing before, and this wouldn't of happened if everyone was too selfish. 

Oh, that's all undoubtedly true. If you could pick any point in time to be born and live in, this would clearly be the time to pick.

I think what frustrates people is that we're living at a time when we're in the best position historically to address all the things that have gone wrong and need fixing, yet there is no political willpower to do that, and in some ways that's more disheartening than almost universal day-to-day drudgery of a living experience where anyone from a lowly peasant to a king didn't know if they'd live to see tomorrow.

[quote=ConanTroutman]

way off topic, but in a lot of ways the world is a much better place today than at almost any point in history. Globally connected media means we are more aware of bad stuff, but overall across the globe rates of absolute poverty, violence, and preventable diseases are dropping and life expectancy and literacy rates are increasing. The whole concept of human rights didn't even exist as few hundred years ago and now they are safeguarded to some extent for a greater proportion of humanity than ever before. 

Yes there are serious issues we face as a species: damage we have done to the environment, rising inequality, reactionary social and political movements from ISIS to the far right in the West. But make no mistake, the idea that things are universally bad and getting worse is just not true.

For example: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015...

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/201...

https://ourworldindata.org/democratisation/

http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/li...

But good news stories don't grab the headlines like bad news does...

[/quote

If we are more aware of the bad stuff why are there over 32 million people using heroin and opium?

Fair comment. "Better than it used to be" isn't the same as "as good as it could be".

It is a little ironic though that we can only have that perspective because of how far we have come

people have always used drugs. Not really sure what you are getting at there?

You said that the globally connected media means we are more aware of the bad stuff. 

So I asked why if that was the case are there 32 million people using heroin and opium.  Also over 200 million use illegal drugs.

Yeah and I don't really see how that is connected to global mediaa making people more aware of bad news. Like I said, people have always used drugs, across all cultures and all of history. Even animals will deliberate get wasted if they are given the opportunity to 

Anyway. It's been an intriguing hijack, but maybe we should go back and talk about some transfers a bit?

Allen to Stoke for 13m does seem like a bargain in the current market

The way he played at the Euro, it certainly is a bargain.

Fantastic hijack

Mahrez talk heating up for arsenal, but rumours of chelsea interest as well

Ranieri doing his best to convince him to stay

What is the hold up with Pogba?

Allen to Stoke looks a good deal on the face of it, they've quietly built a good team under hughes

Biased hat on of course by LFC have done some decent business in selling to cover the purchases (although not all purchases confirmed yet)

In:

Mane 36m

Karius 4.7m

Matip free

Klavan 4.2m

Wijnaldum 25m

Manniger free

Out:

Ibe 15m

Skrtel 5m

Rossiter 0.25m

Sinclair 4m

Teixeira 0.25m

Vigouroux 0.4m

Smith 6m

Allen 13m

26m spent overall 

That's a decent strengthening. 

I share your Liverpool Bias,  business so far has been good, but not great.

I'm still hoping to get rid of Benteke and Balotelli on top of all that activity.

A new LB wouldn't go a miss either, we have been linked to Hector - along with a few other clubs.

A deal for Ben Chilwell from Leicester is still floating around.

Rumours of Balo on another loan, this time to Bekistas. I'd like a LB too and also another DM - we're full to the brim of AMs at the moment which makes me think we'll be playing 4-2-3-1

This Pogba thing keeps rumbling on. Seems to me like Juventus are trying to do what Tottenham did with Bale: hold off on making the deal public until as late as possible, so that the clubs they're buying from don't take them for a ride knowing they've got €100m to spend. That is somewhat undermined by spending so much on Higuain but I'd still hazard a guess that that's what's going on.

Who'll be leading the line? Sturridge? Who will back him up?

Some bizarre shark going on around the Pogba juve/United/Madrid transfer. Adidas posted a weird troll-like video to add fuel to it

Got plenty of options there. Ings is like a new signing for us given last season out and suits Klopp's style, Origi showed enough to be trusted there when called upon and Firmino can play there at a pinch. Bye bye Benteke. 

Arsene, is that you?

So this morning we've linked with at least half a dozen CB's, more Mahrez rumblings, more dribble around Lacazette (which if true, I dunno why we're procrastinating... sigh), Jese, Turan, and probably some kid with a decent two minute YT vid.

Oh - and:

lol

Current team is a bit off hence your lol

Balotelli for Arsenal - heard it here first folks...

Thought it was you that wrote to F365 lol

I literally just saw that on their Twitter feed. I was just having a laugh and looks like someone else is too. Lallana to Spurs looks a possibility though. 

Haha please no. We went for Welbeck instead last time and even though he's been injured for half the time he's been with us and hasn't been a huge success when fit, he still undoubtedbly proved to be the better option.

hell no mario