“Is It Your Money?” Is an Idiotic Argument | OneFootball

“Is it your money?” is one of the most idiotic replies to criticism of a football club’s spending.

No, it is not the supporter’s money. That is completely irrelevant.

When I saw people questioning the reported £117 million fee for Morgan Rogers, only to be met with the same witless response of “Is it your money?”, I genuinely felt like banging my head against my desk.

It is the sort of reply you see again and again from people who seem completely incapable of understanding consequences beyond the next transfer announcement. They look at one deal in isolation, ignore wages, opportunity cost, PSR, SCR and the effect it has on future contracts, then act smug because they have reduced the entire issue to who physically owns the bank account.

These are probably the same people who think there is a specific sock for your left foot and another for your right.

The argument assumes that if an owner can afford a transfer, there can be no consequences to overspending. Anyone saying this is either refusing to see the bigger picture or is simply too dim to understand it.

A club does not spend money in isolated transactions. Every inflated fee and excessive salary affects future contracts, future transfers and the club’s ability to remove players it no longer wants.

Alexis Sánchez Broke United’s Wage Structure

Manchester United’s signing of Alexis Sánchez is a perfect example.

Sánchez arrived in 2018 on a reported basic salary of roughly £400,000 per week, with incentives capable of taking it considerably higher. United’s wage bill rose by more than 10 per cent during that period.

The damage was not limited to Sánchez playing badly.

Once United had shown they were prepared to pay one player that much, every important player and agent had a new reference point. David de Gea could reasonably ask why he should accept significantly less than a failing forward when he was one of the club’s best performers.

United eventually gave De Gea an enormous contract, reportedly worth around £300,000 to £375,000 per week. That became another benchmark. Jadon Sancho later arrived on wages reported at around £350,000 per week, while Marcus Rashford’s new contract placed him among the club’s highest earners.

This does not mean Sánchez personally negotiated every later contract. It means his deal helped destroy the club’s wage ceiling.

Once the ceiling rises, it is extremely difficult to lower it. Players compare themselves with teammates. Agents point to existing contracts. The club either pays the new rate or risks losing valuable players.

That is the consequence the “Is it your money?” crowd cannot grasp. One reckless contract can shape negotiations for years.

High Wages Create Golden Handcuffs

Excessive salaries also make unwanted players almost impossible to sell.

A player earning £300,000 per week is not going to volunteer to move somewhere offering half that amount. Interested clubs may like the player, but not enough to match his salary. The selling club is then left with three bad options.

It can keep paying a player the manager does not want. It can subsidise his wages at another club. Or it can negotiate a large payoff to end the contract.

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These are football’s golden handcuffs. The contract is so lucrative that leaving makes no financial sense for the player, while keeping him damages the club.

Chelsea and Raheem Sterling

Chelsea’s situation with Raheem Sterling showed exactly how this happens.

Sterling was reportedly earning around £325,000 per week on a contract lasting until 2027. Once he was no longer part of Chelsea’s plans, his salary severely reduced the number of clubs capable of signing him. Chelsea loaned him to Arsenal, continued trying to find a permanent solution and eventually agreed to end his contract by mutual agreement in January 2026. Reports indicated that a confidential settlement was required, although it saved Chelsea from paying the full remaining value of the deal.

Chelsea effectively had to sit on an unwanted, highly paid player because the contract they had given him made a normal transfer extremely difficult.

That is not free spending. It is a club becoming trapped by its own decisions.

Bad Contracts Restrict Future Teams

Under PSR, previous spending affected the losses clubs could record across a rolling three-year period. Under the new Squad Cost Ratio rules, wages, transfer costs and agent fees consume a percentage of club revenue.

An unwanted player therefore does not merely occupy a space in the dressing room.

He occupies financial space that could have been used for a new centre-back, midfielder or striker. Four or five unwanted players on major salaries can prevent a club from completing an entire rebuild. An example of this, this season has been Marcus Rashford at Man United.

The club expected him to leave to Barcelona, and then they moved onto other targets, basically scuppering any chance for them to sign an established replacement and have instead brought in Tynan Thompson from Tottenham in a deal that could be worth £8m.

This is how clubs spend hundreds of millions and still end up with incomplete squads. The problem is not always that they refuse to spend. It is that too much of their spending capacity is tied to players they cannot use and cannot shift.

Try Seeing the Bigger Picture

Nobody is arguing that clubs should never spend heavily. Ambitious clubs need to invest, and every transfer involves risk.

The criticism is about spending without discipline.

A wealthy owner does not make financial regulations disappear. Look at how Newcastle are owned by Saudi Arabia, yet has to sell their best players in spite of having more money than you could ever imagine.

Wealth does not remove amortisation costs, reduce wages or persuade an unwanted player to abandon a guaranteed contract. It does not stop one ridiculous salary becoming the starting point for the next negotiation.

So when somebody criticises a wasteful transfer and the response is “Is it your money?”, the answer is simple.

No, it is not.

But if you cannot see how today’s reckless contract restricts tomorrow’s squad, you are either wilfully blind to the consequences or too dim to understand the bigger picture.