Love this move if it’s confirmed. Good transfer fee up front for St Pats, and James gets a solid season of senior football before moving properly to Italy after the summer. At Pats also get a season of his talent too. Hopefully more youngsters will continue to think broadly about prospects outside of England
Last edited by tommy_c12000; 25/01/2022 at 10:20 PM.
I wonder if this is an easier option for those with foreign born parents, certainly id imagine it is for those who weren't born here but moved as children. Perhaps if more immigrant sons move it will entice the "natives" too.
I'm a bloke,I'm an ocker
And I really love your knockers,I'm a labourer by day,
I **** up all me pay,Watching footy on TV,
Just feed me more VB,Just pour my beer,And get my smokes, And go away
Great for Pat's
Folding my way into the big money!!!
It’s a great move and it’s great to see our young talent moving to other strong footballing cultures and leagues. Hopefully more to come.
The cynic in me wonders whether Udinese see him as a legitimate talent who will add value to their first team soon or whether they are speculating on an asset that has future resale value irrespective of playing time. That’s been a bit of their model recently so remains to be seen I suppose.
I’ve seen a lot of sources mention him being Ghanaian born but he’s been with us right through the underage ranks, has played/won the Blue Riband and domestic leagues so you’d have to think he’ll stay with us.
Either way, all the above being said, it’s brilliant news all round, great for the league and can’t help but put a pep in the step.
i kinda get what you say here.... but not sure too many other leagues would consider one of its brighter talents moving on as being great for their league.Originally Posted by SkStu
ah that's the reality though. Most of Europe's leagues are stepping stone leagues. We've barely even been seen as that. More of these transfer fees now should help us retain talent down the line. And Udinese is far better than Mansfield and the likes. If he and others are successful it'll hopefully drive transfer fees up. The LOI has had the pi$$ taken out of it for two long really given what clubs spend on decent players these days.
Id be confident to that he will stay with us but id still be capping him soon enough
Yeah, fair point. I think Stutts is right though. We kinda have to accept our lot as a selling (or stepping stone) league and maximize sales revenue. Its good to see Rovers and Pats figure out how to do that in recent years (Bohs too but to a far lesser extent). To see that league players are attracting Italian and German clubs as next steps instead of the Mansfields
Yep. Every single player sold should have a sell on clause. They make more money from that then winning the league
If you look at most national squads (well, exclude the big countries like England, France, etc) the most common profile of players is that they start in their domestic league and leave it around 21/22 for a decent fee.
If the LoI can get into the habit of selling players for this sort of fee - and if they justify it of course - then this is a real positive for the LoI.
Imagine 4/5 of these transfers a year - €2m coming into LoI clubs annually? Would make a huge difference.
Its progress from when most of these players would leave long before they ever played in the league
Son of the former Olympic race walker Rob Heffernan. Random one!
Got a belated medal at the 2012 Olympics when the winner was disqualified four years later.
Would still be better for the LoI I think if players were at least getting a bit of senior football under their belts before making the move - this could be a 500k transfer for Cork in a couple of years for example. But let's see how it goes.
Not the only young lad that's been in Germany recently. Stephen Ireland has set up his own agency and had both Mark O'Mahony (Cork) and Luke O'Brien (Pat's) over in Germany this month too.
Heffernan is on a professional contract with Cork so they should receive a good fee for him anyway. If they could hang onto him for a season and he can gain some first team experience that could increase his transfer value massively though.
If they get 100k with clauses thrown in they'd be doing well. Probably has a cheap release clause. Good article in the Athletic today about Irish football and they mention bridge transfers. Agents threatening clubs that if they don't make it easy for their players to move on to a bigger club they'll move them somewhere else that will agree to it. Kinda like Aaron Drinan moving from Cork to Waterford and then over to Ipswich a couple of months later. Be surprised if Stephen Ireland is letting lads sign professional contracts at 16 without clauses that allow them move onto bigger clubs cheap enough.
I believe their entitle to compensation on top of the transfer fee so I would be quite confident Cork would get a decent sum for him and I would definitely expect it to exceed 100k, word on Twitter is that despite the rumours there is still strong talk of of Heffernan signing for AC Milan, supposedly they have arrived in Milan today anyway.
I think things are better now with these transfers and also yes I would expect there to be clauses in the contract, it must also be said that Heffernan is a much better prospect than players like Drinan so I would think these clubs would think twice before trying to gamble on a player like Heffernan, if there’s competition especially.
Great to see Heff being looked at by Leverkusen and Milan. Has anyone heard of Cork youngster, David Dunne? Much younger but apparently playing at an unbelievable level and said to be nailed on for professional football at the highest level.
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