According to Dutch publication Eindhoven Dagblad (relayed by Sport Witness), Arsenal will receive a small windfall when Donyell Malen completes his impending transfer from PSV Eindhoven to Borussia Dortmund.
Recruited from Ajax, Malen was on the books at the Emirates between 2015 to 2017. He scored 27 goals in 67 appearances for the club’s youth teams and was tipped to make the jump to the first team only to grow impatient at a lack of opportunities.
The return to Holland has paid dividends for the attacker. Since joining PSV Eindhoven in a deal that netted the Gunners just over £500,000 he’s scored 55 goals in 116 appearances, earned 13 caps for his country and seen his value rocket.
Dortmund are set to redirect €30 million of the fee earned from the sale of Jadon Sancho to Manchester United to recruit Malen.
Having aided the player’s development prior to him turning 18, 1.5% of that fee will go to Ajax and a further 1% (€300,000) will be given to Arsenal.
Malen isn’t the first and won’t be the last to slip through the net at London Colney. Serge Gnabry, Jeff Reine-Adelaide, Ismael Bennacer have all moved for large transfer fees since. leaving us. It’s an area we need to tighten up on, for sure.
Mmmmm….two weeks wages for Willian is hardly a windfall
Logged in to say the precise same words!
If someone offered you a “small windfall” of £500k would you complain ?
If I was a billionaire, with more than 40 bn in my account, then I would say “F*ck off” to this pittance. And ask the person who sold him, why did we make a loss of 30mn euros on a young talent. Then sack him.
And you’ve just explained why you’re not a billionaire
You are more intelligent than me. Hope you become a billionaire
A lot of these stupendously wealthy folks are far more “portfolio-rich” than they are “cash-rich”. I once met a millionaire dude who had most of his wealth tied up in real estate. He showed me his account balance (current) which was about £60,000 total. That was still incredible but he was trying to explain to me that cash-flow and personap expenses was why he was still working long hours despite being rich. I’ve also experienced the Gordon Gecko – “Greed is Good” types at a summer placement before. Trust me, £1000 in personal expenses can be as important as £1… Read more »
The argument is that Arsenal sell their players for pittance and then purchase replacements for princely ransom
We sold Martinez for 20 mn and lesser known replacements are being touted for 30 mn
Pepe was more expensive than any winger in EPL
And the list is endless
My misunderstanding. That wasn’t as clear the first time round. Yeah that’s a perfectly strong argument for incompetence at the senior level. We must do better on that front. Though I don’t think it’s a fair argument at youth level. He wasn’t valued at €30 million back when we sold him. He was valued at £180,000, the club sold him for £540,000 and will be getting a further £258,000 in development compensation. I don’t think it’s fair to say we “made a loss of €30 million” and then sack someone over it. If that were the case, virtually most of… Read more »
Oh well.
That’s Willian’s pizza express deliveries paid off for the next two years.
This is like when you play Monopoly and a Chance card says a player has to give you + the other players some cash 💸. Even if it’s only a small amount, it must be a nice feeling for the backroom staff at Arsenal who were involved in drafting those sell-on terms.
I don’t personally blame the club for the Gnabry/Bayern shenanigans but the others are a reminder for why some of us Gooners would like to see standout youth given more of a chance at this club.
Except of course this is a not a drafted sell on term by Arsenal (unlike the Bennacer and the Reine-Adelaide deals). This is just put in according to FIFA regulations on solidarity and compensation payments. So it would be correct in this case that Arsenal’s backroom staff have a look at why in this case a player left for such a pittance with no sell-on or buy-back clauses inserted.
Not sure why we would want to buy back any of the above named other than Gnabry. And Wenger was responsible for that cock up. Sell on clauses ought to be added as a matter of course, however.
Good to know 👍.
I would like to meet a sports lawyer/intermediary who can explain why most player transfers don’t seem to have sell-on clauses. I wonder if Mino Raiola was Malen’s agent around the time he went to PSV.
Three words:
Buy
Back
Clause
We should be trying to add them on to deals where we are selling obviously talented players that aren’t quite first team ready and don’t fancy umpteen loan moves.
If we wanted to sign Malen, we probably could have. Same goes for all the players we’ve sold, except maybe Gnabry at Bremen.
True but there was nothing to prevent us matching Dortmund’s €30 million bid if we wanted him – I suspect the player would have still chosen Borussia anyway though. Champions League football, new beginnings and all that.
Even if we had a buy back clause, you can’t really force the player to return if they don’t want to.
Same with Gnabry – he certainly wouldn’t have returned to Arsenal if it was a choice between us or Bayern.
I honestly believe if he were to leave Bayern one of his preferred destinations would be back here.
unfinished business and all that
Maybe if we were back in the Champions League he might. Other than that I’d imagine his next move, if he ever leaves Bayern, would probably be going to one of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Man City, Chelsea, Man Ure, Liverpool or PSG.
Gnabry is elite. We fucked up big time on him. Although he was clearly unfit in the last couple of years with us there was enough about him to suggest a real diamond in the rough. Still, Saka is looking very much of the same class if not better, only without the fitness issues *touch wood*.
The reason Malen left was because he had Nketia and Akpom to compete with as a future first team prospect, now he has Balogun and Martinelli and oh yeh, still Nketia… Can’t keep them all.
Agree. If it’s good enough for Barca, it’s good enough for us.
I don’t think Arsenal’s record concerning young players who leave is actually a problem, or any worse than other English clubs with successful academies. With the single exception of Gnabry (and he really wanted to play in Germany), I don’t think any of them would be more than a squad player–if that–for us. Yes, Reine-Adelaide might be worth more now, but we kept a bunch of good players we can sell (Willock, Maitland-Niles, Nketiah, and Nelson) and that’s part of the story too-and so are Saka and Smith Rowe.
the way bennacer has been playing for milan i think he’d actually make a nice partner for partey (though i’d take kessie over him if i had the pick of their midfield).
Ah well. Him and Gnabry could have blocked ESR and Saka’s path. Everything happens for a reason.
Probably.
That is not true. Great players find a way no matter how crowded the top is.
But they might have saved us from Willian…and maybe Pepe.
(I am glad we have Pepe though. I have a feeling he will take the EPL by storm next season)
Yeah but all top clubs have done it. United had to buy Pogba back. Chelsea lost Lukaku, KDB and Salah. City lost Sancho.
Sometimes cream doesn’t rise to the top until it’s given a solid bit of game time. We could’ve had Messi in the ranks during the invincibles and he just wouldn’t have got a look in.
Maybe Ashley Cole wouldn’t have been Cashley Cole if Sylvinho hadn’t had a dodgy passport.
You can’t beat yourself up about these things.
Well put. Always best to move onward and upward. Our current crop of youngsters are the best in a while which bodes well for the next set if the trend continues
We’ll never know for sure, but I can’t help thinking that if we had given him at least some playing time in the senior squad we, rather than another club, could have had the option of selling – if necessary – for “big” money instead of receiving an insignificant sell-on fee. Arsenal are better at bringing on and, as importantly, retaining young talent now but we can’t afford (literally) to become complacent.
A 1% sell-on fee is shocking. Who was responsible for that? Presumably Dick Law or Ivan Gazidis.
Thats not a sell on fee. Every transfer has some sort of solidarity / compensation fee thats imposed by FIFA regulations.
Why even insert a 1% sell on clause? I retired a decade ago from full time day to day management now, but I don’t even think that was allowed in FM.
I can’t help feel a bit dejected that Man U get a great young player like Sancho while we get a pittance for his replacement at his old club. The window isn’t shut yet but I just feel like we are being overtaken by our rivals at an ever alarming speed.
We literally had nothing to do with this transfer, so what does it matter that we got very little from a sell-on fee?
To be honest, if the 1% youth development fee wasn’t mentioned in the article, I wouldn’t have expected one.
Also, we’re definitely one of, if not the most, active prem league clubs in this transfer window. You may not like the players involved (I do as it happens) but we’ve hardly been sitting back twiddling our thumbs.
My point is the feeling of major players choosing other clubs over us as we have less and less to offer in terms of prestigious tournaments for them to play in. I think this season really is last chance saloon to avoid a serious slide south for Arsenal.
Ah, I get you. You’re right, we definitely don’t have the draw that we used to when we were champs league mainstays.
Having said that, I think a proper rebuild has been long over due. It didn’t happen with Emery but, with the backing arteta’s getting this summer and the focus on youth, I’m hoping it’s the start of a younger, hungrier team.
Definitely hungrier…looking at Willian
His appetite for “success” is truely something for the younger players to aspire to
I hope you’re right. This is the season for it to happen.
United overtaking us? They’ve been ahead of us for decades unfortunately.
Players are people and not owned by the clubs. You can’t force someone to stay with teh club if they wish to leave.
He did not want to stay, wanted to play fist team on a weekly basis to develop. When should he have played? Who should not have played while he was developing?
People keep bringing up Gnabry I watched him play for the first team. In the end he wanted to leave.
With the financial situation we’re in currently, every penny counts.
Another monumental failure in our ability to recognise and tie down young talent.
Although, in fairness it is sometimes very difficult to predict how a young player will develop..
Contradicted yourself there.
Either the failure is monumental,
or it’s excusable because young players’ development is so hard to predict.
It can’t be both.
Ah that home kit with the stupid stripe down the middle. What a way to ruin what would have been a really good one.
Stupid management. Since ever.