Third Party Transfers Are An Issue

It has been said before, but it needs to be re-iterated, all transfers need to be able to stand and fall on their own merit. If you're doing an exchange deal with someone, make sure you put down all the parts of the deal on the same sheet, and make sure they're all with the same team.  Whether teams are managed by the same manager or not.

As an example. Suppose Real Madrid want to buy David Silva. They speak to the Man City manager, but cannot agree a deal. He has his eye on Mario Goetze at Bayern Munich instead. He tells the Bayern Munich manager that he would only swap Silva for Goetze. The Real Madrid manager cannot ask the Bayern Munich manager to sell Goetze directly to City, he must instead purchase the player himself, wait four weeks, and then sell him on.

Why? Mainly because the more confusing you make things, the harder it is to keep track of what on earth is going on, and the more difficult it is to sort out when things go wrong. I can't find it on here but somewhere on here is a post I made explaining why exchange deals had to be done at the same time, on the same return sheet. No selling a player one week in exchange for one who would arrive four weeks later. No promises and future clauses. No parts of deals with third parties.

It might mean more to you if you all received the number of emails I do from managers who are upset that so and so has just quit 'but he has promised to sell me player X in two turns' or 'he still owes me player Y from a deal twelve years ago' or whatever. The answer is pretty much always - tough. If a transfer goes wrong and it's between two teams and you put it down on the same return sheet then the chances are I can do something about it. Usually I'll ask you to try again for a week or two - and if it doesn't work out then I can often help out. However, if you're asking for a player who was promised a while back, or one that was swapped last season, or whatever, then there's nothing i can do about it. And even worse - if you're complaining because Ethan promised to sell you Messi in three weeks but this week he sold him to Gerard, but you sold Ronaldo to Ethan last season and you sold Aguero to James and you bought John Terry off Chris and now you're not happy... then I'm afraid there's not a lot I can do for you.

Keep your transfers clear and transparent and if something goes wrong you'll be fine. If someone makes a complaint about you, you'll be able to say - no, it was just Rooney plus £40m for Ronaldo or whatever, and you won't have any problems justifying your transfer.