Scarlets agree to sell Ben Morgan

Scarlets agree to sell Ben Morgan to Gloucester for £100,000

THE Scarlets have agreed to sell Ben Morgan to Gloucester for an undisclosed transfer fee, WalesOnline can reveal.

However, sources have claimed it will cost the Kingsholm outfit about £100,000 to buy the England No. 8 out of the final year of his contract.

Gloucester have won the race for the 23-year-old, who made his first Test start in Wales’ Triple Crown-clinching win at Twickenham, despite a late challenge from west country rivals Bristol


Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/rugbynation/rugby-news/2012/03/04/scarlets-agree-to-sell-ben-morgan-to-gloucester-for-100-000-91466-30453384/#ixzz1oAj98Glt
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I don't know how much truth there is in this story and I'm not even sure if I like the idea of a soccer style transfer market.

It's not the first time it's happened is it? I presume none of it went to Morgan as well (unlike in soccer). It gives the Scarlets a bit more money for a replacement (remembering Morgan may be missing for 11+ weeks a season and gets Morgan in the English system. Everybody's happy aren't they?

What they are buying is a year off his contract, I'm not sure what kind of contract he is on now but I doubt if the Scarlets will make any money out of this.

Well they'll have the money they normally pay Morgan + the 'transfer fee'.

That money was written off anyway by his initial contract.

Well the scarlets will receive 100k as payment for the value of his contract and will then have him off the wage budget. Therefore in theory that's 200k to allocate to new acquisitions for next season.

Good for all involved. Pleasure doing business lads.

Cymroglan wrote:That money was written off anyway by his initial contract.

Thanks Cymro - crystal clear explanation.

Ben Morgan will only be on £160k a year?

I'm amazed he accepted that contract, considering what some are earning, it does seem very low for an England international.

If Scarlets were paying a player over 100k on his first contract signed before he'd even played an age grade international then its no wonder welsh rugby is going bankrupt.

This way Scarlets wont have the liability of paying out whatever he was on, and bank an extra 100k as well. With that money they can sign a decent quality player who is committed long term to the club, wont go missing fr half the season, and wont be p1ssed off at them for not releasing him.


Fortunately there isnt that much of a transfer market in rugby yet, and "buying players out" its still not that common but it does happen. moves in general are getting more and more common, in the Jeff its partly down to the salary cap with squads always under pressure to shuffle.

Dont be too surprised if the contract is worth in that region. Wages in the Jeff just arent that high (compared to France or Japan), the average would be less than 100k a year.

Its not like hes Gavin Hneson or anything, and he'll have to be spliting the salary cap with billy Twelvetrees' ridiculous demands

Neil Fissler, in the The Rugby Paper and Walesonline states that Ben has signed a 3-year deal with Gloucester and that we are having a transfer fee of between £100,000 and £150,000 & he'll be on 160,000 per year contract. guess from a scarlets perspective there was two schools of thought (well the board was split on the matter i'm told) 1st,if he's leaving in a year's time take as much money as we can and best wishes to ben. 2nd, if we couldn't find a replacement 8 who was willing to take £100k a year and wasn't as good as ben we might as well keep him. but it looks like we've decided to take our chances with murphy and gilbert for next season instead. the money generated from ben's sale was used to keep JD2, and possibly strenghten our front five for next season. ben is a top bloke, i wish him well with gloucester.

Good for both parties

While I dislike transfer fees, it would be very beneficial to Welsh regions at the moment

(I heard a French club ?Toulon? offered to buy out J.Roberts contract in the autumn, but Roberts said he didn't want to go, but the Blues wanted/needed the money)

There was a BBC article saying that 11 of the 22 players have basically been put out for sale by the regions

gowales wrote:There was a BBC article saying that 11 of the 22 players have basically been put out for sale by the regions

Do you mean 11 players out of ever regions first 22 have been put on sale? Thats 44 players. That sounds highly unlikely (to say the least), particularly with the contracts some players will have won't be expiring.

From the Scarlets point of view, we seem to have lost Morgan (grr) and Day, then maybe Reed, after that I don't reckon we'll loose more than 2 others - that's a huge amount less than 11 first 22 players.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:If Scarlets were paying a player over 100k on his first contract signed before he'd even played an age grade international then its no wonder welsh rugby is going bankrupt.

This way Scarlets wont have the liability of paying out whatever he was on, and bank an extra 100k as well. With that money they can sign a decent quality player who is committed long term to the club, wont go missing fr half the season, and wont be p1ssed off at them for not releasing him.


Fortunately there isnt that much of a transfer market in rugby yet, and "buying players out" its still not that common but it does happen. moves in general are getting more and more common, in the Jeff its partly down to the salary cap with squads always under pressure to shuffle.

Dont be too surprised if the contract is worth in that region. Wages in the Jeff just arent that high (compared to France or Japan), the average would be less than 100k a year.

Its not like hes Gavin Hneson or anything, and he'll have to be spliting the salary cap with billy Twelvetrees' ridiculous demands

I agree with most of what you said but who could Scarlets sign up? Scarlets have a smaller salary cap than the AP clubs now. With the exodus to France is there really a desire to join a Welsh club?

From Gloucester's perspective they are getting potentially a very good player. It's a hefty chunk out of the salary cap though and will be unavailable for most of the season as he'll be with England.

Beshocked, the regions' salary cap is only for HEC squads I think. Most English clubs also include additional squad players and some academy players in their salary cap. Although I doubt it's £1M so the clubs do have a bigger cap.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

gowales wrote:There was a BBC article saying that 11 of the 22 players have basically been put out for sale by the regions

Do you mean 11 players out of ever regions first 22 have been put on sale? Thats 44 players. That sounds highly unlikely (to say the least), particularly with the contracts some players will have won't be expiring.

From the Scarlets point of view, we seem to have lost Morgan (grr) and Day, then maybe Reed, after that I don't reckon we'll loose more than 2 others - that's a huge amount less than 11 first 22 players.

No 11 of the 22 internationals that faced England.

Fair enough HammerofThunor.

gowales wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:

gowales wrote:There was a BBC article saying that 11 of the 22 players have basically been put out for sale by the regions

Do you mean 11 players out of ever regions first 22 have been put on sale? Thats 44 players. That sounds highly unlikely (to say the least), particularly with the contracts some players will have won't be expiring.

From the Scarlets point of view, we seem to have lost Morgan (grr) and Day, then maybe Reed, after that I don't reckon we'll loose more than 2 others - that's a huge amount less than 11 first 22 players.

No 11 of the 22 internationals that faced England.

Ahh I see but that would seem strange as A Jones and JD2 are staying, Roberts, Halfpenny and Priestland contracts aren't expiring as far as I know, pretty sure Lydiate and Faletau have been tied to their contracts and Bennett, Charteris, Phillips & Hook are already in France.
So that's 11, and I doubt that everyone of the other players is going to be sold, especially not Owens, AWJ, R Jones, L Williams, North, S Jones (he was in the 22).

So at a glance I'd say that story is the BBC blowing smoke up peoples cakeholes again.

This basically helepd finance Jonathan Davies' contract extension.

Disappointing, but it's probbaly the right deicision for everybody. I wish him well.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:Wages in the Jeff just arent that high (compared to France or Japan), the average would be less than 100k a year.

4.2m (I think) cap split between around 40 players usually, so a mean of just over 100k. The median wage will be lower though, as high profile foreign internationals and top class props will be on miles over that.

Cymroglan

If the Scarlets had written the value of his contract off already, then this will just appear as an unexpected '100k + 1 year's wages' on their accounts. They still make the same out of it.

I'll be gutted to see Ben go, he fitted in well with us. But I see it the same as when Dai Lyons went last season, its a real shame but we do have young options there (and hopefully they'll be welsh this time).

It will be intersting to see how he gets on in the Jeff, and how Murphy/Gilbert get on with out Ben being the number one No.8 at the Scarlets. From the performance Murphy gave at the weekend I think he should be ok.

I think this is great news. As mentioned above it will allow Kieran Murphy to come through. I think he has the potential to be better than Morgan.

I agree that Murphy looks good, I just hope it's not too soon for him to take up the reigns as our 1st choice 8, and I def worry that Gilbert is going to have to play too many games too soon as our main back up for 8 and 6.

I would have been so much more comfortable having strength in depth and having Morgan bring on Murphy as Lyons had brought on Morgan, and allowed Murphy and Gilbert to develop and improve while having enough good players in the back 3 (with McCusker, Turnbull, Shingler and Edwards) to give everyone gametime while not over playing anyone.

I would think they'll bring someone in as cover. Probably some Tongan or Samoan...

beshocked wrote:

From Gloucester's perspective they are getting potentially a very good player. It's a hefty chunk out of the salary cap though and will be unavailable for most of the season as he'll be with England.

Salary wise he'll be a direct replacement for Narraway and is being paid less than Tom Voyce is presently on. I'm not sure if he'll be classed as our marquee signing as this may well go to Jimmy Cowan.

The future is looking very bright for Glaws, we just need a bit more strength in depth in the pack, which hopefully should be sorted in the next few weeks.