Aberdeen "should not" be losing out to English lower league clubs for players, says manager Derek McInnes. The Scottish Premiership side have sold striker Adam Rooney to National League side Salford City despite being keen to hold on to him. The Irishman, 30, will earn a reported £4,000 a week in England's fifth tier. "We have lost out on players to League One, which Aberdeen shouldn't be," McInnes said. "It is a challenge for us to retain our players." McInnes acknowledged that there would be "surprise" at the fact a club who have only just been promoted to the National League could lure a player from the Scottish Premiership runners-up. ----------------------------------- Another prime example of football gone crazy !?!? The lad could have been playing European football and visiting Parkhead / Ibrox this season instead of playing non-league football in the English 5th tier. I went to Salford a couple of seasons ago to see Darlo in a bad tempered affair, looking at their ground & lack of facilities it's quite obscene that they are paying a player £4,000 a week It's no wonder clubs are in a financial mess
Isn't it Salford who are being bankrolled by Giggs, Scholes and the Nevilles? 200 grand a year to play non-league football is absolutely crazy. Maybe we should have flogged Rodwell to them. Perhaps Kone wouldn't look out of his depth at that level.
Salford City rings a bell. Is that the club that the Neville brothers, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes own?
Crazy. You only have to go a couple of tiers below that and his weekly wage is more than the entire weekly budget for numerous whole clubs. It's not good for football. The top division in each European country should be on a more or less level playing field. Having said that, big-paying non-league clubs like Salford City and Billericay Town do make for interesting stories.
Can't blame the lad signing on for £4k a week with Salford. He's 30 years old, got 4 maybe 5 seasons left and someone offers him £200k pa. It's a lottery win for the guy!
They’ve rebuilt the ground mate, thisbis a club that’s gonna get somewhere. They are all Salford lads and they won’t stop, they are worth hundreds of millions from football alone, and Neville I know for sure owns hotels and all sorts. They’ll be Championship in 5 years, no mistake.
No idea mate, wouldn’t have thought so, but surely would apply when they hit he League and did the 3-year roll back.
I think it's a brilliant move personally. Take the money out of it. You're doing **** all in Scotland, especially at Aberdeen. Salford are going to keep going up. If he gets them up to league 1 or even the championship... he goes down in the club's folklore. Huge chance for him to do something absolutely special.
3/1 to win the league and 11/8 for promotion. I haven't been following them at all, you think that's a banker? I reckon that's a 4 grand wage for him through the books, not his actual wage. That's an unbelievable transfer.
Aberdeen have finished as runners-up for the last three seasons, and if anyone can break the duopoly of Celtic and Rangers, they currently stand the best chance. Arguably it would be just as special to do that in Scotland as it would be to be a part of Salford's rise. People complain about clubs like Chelsea and Man City 'buying' the league but that's essentially what clubs like Salford and Billericay are doing, yet it seems to be more acceptable in the public's view.
I've got no problem with buying a league personally. A well run club that outspent its rivals deserves it's success. I disagree I think Aberdeen winning the league is about of par with salford getting into the premier league. It's a goliath task that I really don't see happening in the next 5 years. Celtic are immovable for me
I don't necessarily have a problem with it either. But you have to question whether or not there is something up with the way that football is run when a team newly promoted to the fifth tier of English football have more financial clout and are a more attractive option than a team with Aberdeen's pedigree in the top division of the league of a country with Scotland's footballing history. I'm all for a rags to riches football story and hearing about a small club rising above its traditional place. But it's a much nicer story when that rise is on the back of good people, doing things the right way, building gradually and all pulling together to achieve success than when that rise is empowered simply by someone throwing more cash at it than their competitors. Let's take Stewart Donald for example and his 'Borussia Dortmund' model; that's the way to build a sustainable football club and to garner respect at the same time.
But isn't that just what Neville and his Man U mates are doing? Its all relative, financially. Yes they've got a **** load more money than anyone around them, but instead of buying someone else's relative success by buying a ready-made PL club, they're building from scratch and trying to get to the PL that way. I hope they do it, I really do.
Is it? I suppose that depends on your point of view. If you're associated with another club at their level then I would imagine that it looks like buying your way to promotion. Especially when you're buying players from the top flight of historically strong leagues. If you're associated with a Premiership club then maybe it does look like building your way up slowly. As a sort of comparison, I know of a non-league club who are now around three tiers below where Salford are currently. They have won three promotions on the trot but have done it on a budget at best equal to the clubs surrounding them. This season coming they will have the smallest budget in their league but are confident of a good season due to the coaching/scouting set up that they have and the enthusiasm and dilligence of their staff. Now, to me, that's much more impressive than what the Salford owners have done.