Buying on Tick or the Never Never

Duxbury has come out and said that the Jimenez deal will be the model for all future transfer deals at Upton Park because it is great for "cash flow". Well of course it is, £8m payed in twelve months time is obviously more attractive to a club in financial difficulties than £6 up front now - especially if you never intend to complete the purchase.

Littlewoods & Gratton catalogues have made millions by exploiting poorly educated working class people who happily cough up 20% interest rates in return for being able to buy on the basis of weekly or monthly installments; and the entire banking crisis is based on the buy now, pay later culture. It is great to wave that credit card and walk out of the shop with a new outfit or flat screen home cinema system, great until you have to settle the bill; then the problems start.

As I understand it, there is an agreed formula for spreading the costs of buying a player over a five year period. Pay £8m now, and he appears in the accounts for £1.5m (or thereabouts) for each of the next five years. The beauty of buying him up front is that you cash in on future resale value, providing you are buying an appreciating asset. Look at Pardew's deals: Reo-Coker, Harewood, Zamora, Paintsil - we turned a nice profit on each and how much would we make if we sold Green and Cole now. The trouble with the Duxbury approach is that you are simply deferring the cost for a year and I cannot believe there isn't a cost involved in this arrangement. Inter Milan are not waving £8m for 12 months out of a sense of charity for West Ham are they? If we offered £6m up front, would they take it? I bet they would!

Buying on tick is all very well providing the ticking isn't the sound of a financial time bomb. The problem of buying on the Never Never is that if you never actually own a player, it becomes difficult for the manager to build his team with any certainty. Even if Jimenez does superbly, does that guarantee Zola that he will be "in funds" to make the signing permanent in 12 months time?

As Jacko has just discovered, all bills have to be settled eventually. Never Never Land can appear like a wonderful theme park, but it often masks something very sinister. Duxbury may still be shafting us all!