Originally Posted by bigmac
As distinct from missing out completely you mean? I don't think anybody is blaming Bray for destroying a deal, I'm quite happy that an Irish club can reject a significant sum of money, regardless of the terms of the deal. The deal fell through because Shels value Byrne higher than Djurgardens, simple as that.
The point that people raised here is a valid discussion in the abstract, leaving aside the actual clubs involved. If Shelbourne were to (hypothetically, because I don't hear anyone say that they actually approached Bray) approach Bray and say, "300K is lower than we are willing to accept for this player, but if you were willing to renegotiate this part of the contract and accept a 200K cut of the deal, we would then sell him" what should Bray do?
There is no denying that a contract is a contract, but there is also scope in every contract for the contract to be renegotiated if both parties think it will be beneficial to them. Therefore, there are basically two ways of thinking of it.
1. A contract is a contract is a contract, we don't care about whether we will or won't get any money, as long as the contract is adhered to correctly.
2. Ok, if the deal doesn't go through, then we won't get anything, so let's take a cut and walk away with some unexpected money.
Clearly, a lot of people on this forum would do the latter, to be honest, I'm not that bothered about it, I'm just as happy that a potential relegation rival doesn't have a couple of hundred grand of a cash injection.
On a related note, there have been lots of psychological studies done on a similar problem (I forget the classic case name). Essentially, there are two subjects. One of them is given one hundred euros. He is told that he must split it with the other person, in whatever ratio he wants, however, if the other person is not willing to accept the split, neither party gets anything. Interestingly, even though everybody (no matter what the split) ends up with more than they had before, most people won't accept less than about 25 to 35 percent (it varies) and conversely, most people offer around 30 to 50%, with quite a high percentage at 50. The point of this is that some strange innate sense of "fairness" completely overrides good business sense, and I think that is what some posters here believe has happened with Bray.
For the record, I personally don't believe that Bray were ever asked anything, and this whole transfer has been exaggerated beyond belief. Shels were offered 400K, turned it down straight away, no hesitation, and that was the end of it. Everything else is just hypothetical. Interesting, but hypothetical.