Let's All Laugh At.... Hertha BSC Berlin

I can remember it vividly, but it's worth rereading... the time when Hertha let all their top talents, K.P. and J. Boateng, Dejagah etc leave... because Dieter Hoeness felt these ghetto kids should know their place and not come into his office with an AGENT and make unreasonable demands


...and BILD's writing


from 2007
http://www.bild.de/sport/bundesliga/900-prozent-hsv-2003342.bild.html

(translation)

BILD wrote:He hasn't achieved anything yet, but wants to earn money like the big boys -

The case of Jerome Boateng (Hertha BSC) is symptomatic for a dangerous development in football:

If now mere 18 year olds want to be millionaires in the Bundesliga, that rightly is cause for outrage.

The Hertha youth player demanded 7,5 million for a contract extension beyond 2008 - while having played a mere 10 league games, having never scored or assisted a goal, let alone won a title!

How Boateng imagines his future: A five year contract with a basic salary of 1 million Euro. That already is a 900% increase compared to what he's earning now (about 100 000 €).

Extra-Madness: For each year he demands 250000 € in add-ons. In total - incredible  7,5 m ...

Dieter Hoeneß (54) was sickened by these numbers. The Hertha director offered Jerome 400 000 € per year, and says: "The demands that were made are utopian"


Apparently not for the HSV!! The Hamburgers are said to have agreed terms with the defender talent,
ready to pay him a lavish salary of 900k per year.

Dieter Hoeness primarily blames agents for this new youth player madness: "Their role in transfer dealings should be rethought. They are awakening a coveteousness that's not okay"

Jerome Boateng, developed by Hertha, had been offered to other clubs by his agent Karel van Burik.

I don't see why anyone should laugh at Hertha??? Would you be so amused if he had thrown the same tantrum at Bayern!!!

Hindsight is a fantastic thing.

But it is not just hindsight.

That summer they let go both Boatengs, Dejagah and Malik Fathi, their four most talented players from their own youth.
Because quite clearly Hoeneß had a hissy fit they were making demands, instead of trying to reasonably negotiate them down.

They weren't valuing their youngsters appropriately. While also failing to grow some local identity for their team.

Well, frankly, negotiating agents (!) down is probably not that easy, especially when a club doesn't have a budget as high as Bayern. Imagine giving an 18 year old kid 1 mio Euros - this would totally ruin the wage structure when you don't have a budget as high as Bayern.

Moreover, Hertha don't have the glamour of Bayern that players might settle on smaller money just to be in that club. I can't really fault Dieter Hoeneß there, I have to admit. Especially as with an 18 year old kid you really don't know if they actually deliver on the promise they show.

It is hindsight, had all of them turned out to be horrible players, they'd be getting way overpaid.

Take the Torres transfer, We bought him on massive wages and for a massive fee, he flopped hard and it was nearly impossible for us to move him on, in hindsight it was a mistake to buy him. In reality, we didn't know that at the time.

RWO, this wasn't a single instance of judging a players worth, without context or method.

First of all, everyone knew back then what talents the Boateng brothers were, the dad of a friend of mine was youth coach for Hertha, and they made no secret how highly they rated them.

Hoeness offered Jerome Boateng 400 000, HSV 900 000. So Hoeness quite simply valued Hertha's own top talents much less than other clubs (that is HSV, not Bayern), and instead of trying to keep them he publicly declared how their demands are out of line etc.

Also there was a whole attitude behind how carelessly (bot to use stronger, more damning words) Hertha treated their top youngsters.

In March 2007, then Hertha coach Falko Götz gave an interview to FOCUS where he said about K.P. Boateng:

"I also visited his home once. He has many siblings - all from different fathers. But that's not a flaw, Berlin simply is multicultural"

First of all whatever 'multicultural' has to with multiple partners, second of all K.P.'s half-siblings, like Jerome, are from a different MOTHER

So basically Götz gave an interview to Germany's largest weekly about the home of Wedding wannabe gangster kid Boateng where he said "His mother is doing it with a lot of different men", while getting the family relations wrong

That didn't sit well with Boateng as can be expected.

Anyway bottom line they let a whole bunch of great prospects who were educated at the club and who are from Berlin go for peanuts (aprt from K.P. who brought 7m I think). Dejagah left on a free, Boateng for a 1m fee. Because, let's face it, they were stupid, and a tiny little bit racist.

Well, let's ignore that stupid racist parts, I was more looking at the money side of the things.

That the HSV offer was pretty high for an 18 year old kid in 2007 (!) should be no surprise as the HSV has never really looked after their economic situation. Hertha have considerably less money and it would still break the wage structure to pay an 18 year old too much money.

I think I don't have to remind you of Bayern and Toni Kroos?

rwo power wrote:Well, let's ignore that stupid racist parts, I was more looking at the money side of the things.

That the HSV offer was pretty high for an 18 year old kid in 2007 (!) should be no surprise as the HSV has never really looked after their economic situation. Hertha have considerably less money and it would still break the wage structure to pay an 18 year old too much money.

I think I don't have to remind you of Bayern and Toni Kroos?

First of all, I think Bayern made a mistake by not immediately offering Kroos a vastly improved contract the moment they signed Götze. They waited another year while Kroos was earning much less than his teammates due to him still being on his old contract.
Who knows whether it would've made a difference, but it would've been a signal. The effect of undervaluing your own youth players to an extent as you feel they should be grateful or anything was at display there too.

Second, about the economic side.
So Hertha weren't prepared to match the 900 000 HSV offered and sold him for 1 m €.
The difference between 400 000 and 900 000 is 500 000.

Let's say they'd offered him a 5 year contract, and then would've sold him after 3 years (like HSV) that would've been 1,5 m € more in wages.
I'm pretty sure, since HSV sold Boateng for 12,5m in 2010, Hertha could've sold him for more than 2,5m (the 1m they actually got plus the 1,5 they would have had to overpay their offer) at that point too, so they would effectively have benefitted financially from keeping him.
If for example we assume he would've been valued the same they would've gained 10m €.
So it's undeniable it's a short sighted miscalculation?

The point is more that if Hertha would have offered an 18year old unproven (other than being hailed as big talent) kid 900K, it would have prompted about all of the other players to try and get more money, too, so it wouldn't have been the 500K per year for Jérôme Boateng, but additional all the money they would have had to pay more for the other players to avoid dressing room trouble.

Remember that time Bayern let Kroos go because he wanted to be paid like Götze or Schweinsteiger? That was hilarious.
When was that again?

VivaStPauli wrote:Remember that time Bayern let Kroos go because he wanted to be paid like Götze or Schweinsteiger? That was hilarious.
When was that again?