Fatih Auliarahman

Enjoying music from Frank Sinatra till Eny Sagita

[Fatih Auliarahman @Alrosid_26]

@absolutkylian Sergio Busquets

[lova @CFC_lova]

📺📺📺

[Fatih Auliarahman @Alrosid_26]

@mfatahilahakbar Dalam tahap penyidikan, apakah nanti beliau dipanggil sebagai saksi kunci atau ahli kunci Prof?

[Fatih Auliarahman @Alrosid_26]

@rsngprad Dembele?

[fin @awaaannnn__]

“kami mau melapor ke polisi, polisi punya dapur sppg, kami mau melapor ke TNI, TNI punya dapur sppg, kami mau melapor ke DPR, DPR pun punya dapur sppg. jadi ini jalan terakhir kami untuk mengadu, kepada konstitusilah kami berharap”
—ucap seorang guru, pendidik anak bangsa. ironi.

[Fatih Auliarahman @Alrosid_26]

@UTDMael Seedorf

[Fatih Auliarahman @Alrosid_26]

@nabiylarisfa Positive thinking: belum merasa pantas dengan amanahnya.
Negative thinking: belum tau THPnya.

[WatchmenID @WatchmenID]

salah satu adegan bertarung terbaik di pop culture
https://t.co/hsBOzfYqle

[Bill Moore, Esq. @lawyer_memes]

A junior associate informed me she has a "hard stop" at 5 PM on Fridays.

She said she needs the weekend to protect her peace and maintain her energy.

I told her I completely respect her commitment to boundary setting.

I then removed her from the M&A deal she'd spent two months diligence-ing.

She came to my office on Monday confused as to why her access was revoked.

I explained that a closed deal requires momentum, not a pause button.

She asked how she was supposed to hit her billable requirement now.

I suggested she use all that extra weekend energy to find a new practice area.

Peace is a wonderful concept for people who don't practice corporate law.

The rest of us find our tranquility in a signed signature page.

[𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐫 @ThePreserverofU]

1) Speak like a Lawyer.
2) Express like a Philosopher.
3) Think like a Scientist.
4) Analyze like a Psychologist.
5) Observe like a Detective.
6) Love like a Poet.
7) Decide like a Judge.
8) Create like an Artist.
9) Work like an Engineer.

[Bryan Caplan @bryan_caplan]

Very good.

[muklas @mukaikhlas]

GEER BANGET😭😭😭😭😭

[Ajoje⚽⚖️ @israel_ajoje]

This one is a football accounting gem. I promise you will love it.

In January 2023, Chelsea signed Mykhailo Mudryk from Shakhtar Donetsk for £88.5 million. The deal was jaw dropping on its own. But what really made the football world stop and stare was not the fee. It was the contract length. Eight and a half years. The longest contract in Premier League history at the time.

Journalists questioned it. Rival clubs complained about it. And most fans had absolutely no idea what Chelsea were actually doing.

But let me tell you. They were not being reckless. They were doing math. Very clever, very deliberate, very legal math. And the tool they were using is called amortisation.

This is part of what football insiders consider during transfers.

Are you with me? Good.

Here is the simplest way to understand amortization. When a club signs a player, they spread the accounting of the cost of the transfer fee over the period of the contract signed by the player.

So for example, when Harry Maguire signed for Manchester United in 2019 for £80 million on a six year deal, that did not show up as an £80 million expense in year one. It worked out as an annual amortisation cost of £13.3 million per year.

That is the entire concept.

Think of it the same way you think of a mortgage. You do not pay the full value of a house on the day you move in. You spread it. Football clubs do the exact same thing with players, and it is not a trick or a cheat. It is standard accounting practice used across every industry in the world. Check it. It's International Standard 38- used for accounting for intangible assets.

The reason it matters so much in football is because of Financial Fair Play and Profitability and Sustainability Rules, which regulate how much clubs can lose in any given period.

Amortisation costs are added to the profit and loss account each year, so the lower your annual amortisation figure, the healthier your books look. And here is where contract length becomes a weapon.

Now let us do the math together.

By using amortisation to complete Mudryk's transfer, Chelsea were able to record his £80 million fee as just £9.41 million per year for UEFA's FFP calculation. Had they signed Mudryk to a four year deal instead, his fee would have been recorded as £20 million per year. Same player. Same fee.

More than double the annual accounting cost just by changing the contract length. That is the power of what Chelsea figured out. They did the same with Enzo Fernandez, signed for a then-British record of £106.8 million on an eight and a half year deal, which translated to an annual amortisation expense of approximately £13.4 million.

And Moises Caicedo for £115 million on eight and a half years. And Wesley Fofana for £70 million on seven years. Repeat this across an entire squad and a billion pounds of spending starts to look manageable on paper.

Did you get that?

Now let's look at another part of amortization- the book value piece, because this changes how you think about every transfer you have ever watched.

Book value is the difference between the transfer fee spent on a player minus what has already been amortised.

For example, after two years, a £50 million player signed on a five year deal has a book value of £30 million. Any sale above £30 million is recorded as a profit. Anything below is a loss. This is why clubs can sell a player for what looks like a loss and still report a gain in their accounts.

Take this example: a player is signed for £40 million on a five year contract. He is not a success and is sold two years later for £26 million. At the point of sale, his book value is £24 million, meaning the club actually books a £2 million profit on the deal. Fans see terrible business. The accountants see a gain. Same transaction, completely different reality.

Manchester City lived this with Robinho. He was bought for £32.5 million on a four year deal in 2008, with annual amortisation of £8.1 million. He was sold after two years, leaving a book value of £16.3 million. City sold him for £18 million and claimed a £1.7 million profit on the sale. Supporters spent years calling it a disaster. The finance department called it a profit.

There is one more trick worth knowing: contract extensions. If a player signs a new contract during their existing deal, the remaining unamortised value is spread over the length of the new contract.

So if you bought a player for £60 million on a five year deal and after two years you extend his contract by three more years, the remaining £36 million book value is now spread across five new years instead of three.

That reduces the annual amortisation cost and can reduce FFP losses by millions per year. Extending a contract is not always about keeping a player happy. Sometimes it is purely a financial decision dressed up as a vote of confidence.

Back to Chelsea. Other clubs eventually complained loudly enough that UEFA had to act. UEFA amended its Financial Sustainability Regulations in July 2023, introducing a rule that limits the amortisation of player registrations to a maximum of five years, regardless of how long the contract actually runs.

The Premier League followed in December 2023, when shareholders voted to apply the same five year maximum to all new or extended player contracts going forward. The loophole was closed. But crucially, the rule could not be applied retrospectively, meaning every player Chelsea signed on those long contracts before December 2023 continues to be amortised over the full contract length.

Chelsea were already finished with their biggest spending windows by the time the door was shut. The timing was not a coincidence.
As I conclude, always remember this- the contract is never just a contract. It is an accounting instrument. And the clubs that understand that are always three moves ahead of the ones that do not.

I hope you enjoyed this.

Tomorrow, by 7AM WAT, We get into the wage bill, and why a £50 million transfer can quietly become a £150 million commitment before you have blinked.

Thanks for reading.

My name is Ajoje. I am a FIFA Licensed Agent and International Sports Lawyer. I write on the Law and Business of Football, a lot. Repost and Follow if you want to read more posts like this.

[Ajoje⚽⚖️ @israel_ajoje]

Let me tell you a very short story. Real Madrid sold Álvaro Morata to Juventus in 2014 for around €20 million. He thrived in Italy. Two years later, Madrid bought him back for €30 million using a buy-back clause they'd inserted in the original contract. Then, just one year after that, they flipped him to Chelsea for £60 million.

Do the math. Real Madrid made a €30 million profit on a player they had already sold once. That's not super good business. And it's all because of one clause buried in a contract most fans never saw.

Early on, we covered the fear clause, sell-on and add-on clauses. Now we're getting into the clauses that let clubs keep control even after a player leaves: options to buy, rights of first refusal, and buy-back clauses. These are the tools that separate smart clubs from the rest.

BTW, you should absolutely read every word about the Right of First Refusal(ROFR).

Let's go.

Option to Buy
This is usually tied to loans. It gives the borrowing club the right, but not the obligation, to make the transfer permanent.

For Example, Mateo Kovačić joined Chelsea on loan from Real Madrid for the 2018-19 season with an option to buy for around €45 million. He performed well, Chelsea activated the option, and he became a permanent player.

Do you get it? Yes, you do.

But here's the twist: some "options" are disguised obligations. For example, the option that automatically becomes an obligation after 5 appearances. Suddenly, it's not optional at all. Lawyers read that differently.

Legal Pitfall: The line between option and obligation gets blurred fast. Aston Villa currently has the same issue with Liverpool’s Harvey Elliot as his loan deal has an "option to buy for €55 million after 10 appearances."His minutes are currently being managed  and despite playing brilliantly, he has just 7 Apps for Villa.

Livepool could be furious because they expected the deal to become permanent. But technically, Aston Villa haven’t breached anything. They just managed the situation.

That's why some selling clubs insist on obligations with clearly defined, unavoidable triggers.

 Another issue: unclear wording on who holds the option. Does the buying club decide unilaterally, or does the player have to agree to personal terms again?

If the loan contract says "option to buy" but doesn't specify that the player has already pre-agreed to terms, the buying club might activate the option only to find the player refuses to sign. Then what?

The clause needs to be explicit: "The buying club has the unilateral right to purchase the player for €12 million, and the player has pre-agreed to contract terms as per Annex A” or whatever part of the contract the terms are.

Est-ce que c’est clair? Oui, c’est clair.

On to the next.

Right of First Refusal (ROFR)

The right of first refusal (ROFR) is a clause in a football player's transfer deal that forces the current club (the one who bought him) to tell the previous club (who sold him) about any serious offer from another team.

If another club wants to buy the player and makes a good offer, the current club must inform the original club first and give them the chance to match that exact offer.

If the original club matches the offer, they can buy the player back instead of letting him go to the new team (though the player usually has the final say on where he wants to play).

Sounds hazy right? I know. I will explain. But know that it's a way to maintain some control even after selling a player.

Example: There are very few headline examples of this move, as clubs usually silently match the clause in private. But very recently, The ROFR clause was in Pablo Torre's transfer agreement from FC Barcelona to RCD Mallorca.

It gives Barcelona priority to match any future offer if Mallorca decides to sell him. It pairs with Barcelona's buy-back optio and a 50% sell-on clause (entitling them to half of any future profit on resale).

NB: ROFR is not the same as a buy-back clause. Big difference. One reacts to the market (ROFR), one fixes the price in advance (buy-back).

The biggest issue with this is timing and enforceability. A ROFR sounds great in theory, but in practice, it can be a nightmare.

Here's why: Assuming Liverpool makes a €15 million offer to Everton for a player. Everton notifies United, who has, say, 72 hours to match. But what if United doesn't have €15 million available in that window? What if they're in a transfer embargo? The ROFR becomes useless.

And here's a sneaky one: sometimes the buying club (Everton) and the bidding club (Liverpool) collude to inflate the price artificially high, knowing United can't match it. The ROFR is technically honored, but it's been gamed. Unless the clause includes protections against bad faith dealing, it's vulnerable.

So there you have it. We have discussed two very sneaky clauses today. We will talk about the Buy Back clause some other time.

I hope you had a nice time reading.

If you did, ensure you Follow and Repost.

[Saganism @Saganismm]

“It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”

— Albert Einstein

[🍂 @Lovandfear]

In english we say : I love you

But Dostoevsky said : I do not ask for your love in return. To love you is enough. To have known you, to have felt alive in your presence-that is my greatest joy, and I will carry it with me always. You cannot imagine how much happiness you've brought into my life. You came like a light in my darkness, a warmth in my cold solitude, and for that, I will always be grateful. Even if it was but for a single moment, I have known what it is to love and be loved, and that moment will be mine forever, untouchable by time or sorrow.

( This is NOT fully Dostoevsky's writing, but a bit altered)

version of it!**

[• @Al__Quraan]

One day In'Sha'Allah