Take one struggling Championship club, a crippling wage bill of £8million a year, then bring them a host of new stars to get them promoted to the Barclays Premier League. All for 100 quid.
Doncaster Rovers are attempting to change the landscape of British football, turning the Keepmoat Stadium into the most prolific bring-and-buy sale in history. International stars will come and go quickly, sold on to the highest bidder as Doncaster provide the shop window for some of Europe’s disaffected or disillusioned players. Rovers fans will cheer on new heroes from Lyon, Saint-Etienne, Lorient and Marseille, barely getting used to their names before they are moved on for big money.
Doncaster are cutting through the core values and customs of English football, convinced that the old-fashioned principles will soon be a thing of the past. Pascal Chimbonda, Herita Ilunga and Chris Kirkland have already been on the Keepmoat conveyor belt, but that’s just the start. Fabien Robert, brother of former Newcastle winger Laurent, Saint-Etienne left back Sylvain Monsoreau, France Under 20 defender Lamine Kone and Argentina midfielder Sebastian Dubarbier will soon be on show.
El-Hadji Diouf, a free agent after leaving Blackburn, and former Real Madrid and Lyon midf ielder Mahamadou Diarra are also in talks with a team second from bottom of the Championship. So how is it all coming about? Well, Doncaster have a watertight contract for the next two years with the most notorious — and arguably most successful — agent in British football. Willie McKay is the middle man acting on behalf of Doncaster, charging them just £100 a week for his services, having lodged his plan with the FA on September 27.
The FA’s financial regulation officer Andrew Penn wrote back to McKay in a letter dated October 6 accepting his proposals and rubber-stamping the Donny Dream. That contract with Doncaster and the FA means that nobody can come in or out of the Keepmoat Stadium for the next two years unless McKay says so, although he says manager Dean Saunders has the power of veto.
McKay makes no bones about his business model, taking advantage of unlimited international loans and working the European transfer market to maximum effect. He intends to make money — serious money — out of Doncaster and in return give them the best group of players their 10,000 loyal supporters have ever seen. They just won’t be there for long.
There will be agreements with clubs all over Europe, borrowing their troubled players and giving them the platform to perform at the highest level again.
Donny will pay a maximum of £2,000 a week towards a player’s existing salary, relying on the parent club to pay the difference in their contract during their loan. McKay said: ‘Take Herita Ilunga as an example. He’s on £26,000 a week at West Ham, not getting a game and they can’t get him a move. I called the joint-chairman David Sullivan and offered £1,000 a week to take Ilunga on loan. David laughed and said, “Make me a sensible offer”, so I said, “OK, £500”.
‘Anyway, eventually we agree the deal on £2,000 a week and West Ham make up the rest of his wages. We take him at Doncaster, who are no threat to West Ham, and give him a shop window to perform by playing every week. ‘If he plays well and I get him a move, say to Turkey for £5m, then I’ll reach an agreement with David Sullivan about the fee West Ham will receive, plus my commission, less his full £26,000-a-week salary for the period he was at Doncaster.’ As well as benefiting from the player’s performances, Rovers will receive a cut of the transfer fee.
McKay’s unique experiment will not sit comfortably with football fans across the country, but the Glaswegian businessman has never been the sort for sentiment. In his career as a football agent he has been involved in 485 deals, ranging from Ronaldinho’s move from Paris Saint-Germain to Barcelona to acting for Queens Park Rangers during negotiations to sign Joey Barton on a free transfer. McKay will swing back into action in the January transfer window, but for now most of his time is taken up with Doncaster.
He is friends with two of the club’s major shareholders, John Ryan and Dick Watson, promising them a team fit for the Premier League now he is in full control of transfers. McKay added: ‘These guys approached me. They have a wage bill of £8m a year and want it reduced to £4m. My valuation of Donny was nothing. They have no fanbase and everyone in Doncaster supports Leeds, Sheffield United or Sheffield Wednesday, who can all get 30,000 in their stadiums.
‘Donny have players on £7,000 a week and a core support of 10,000 people — nobody can sustain that. ‘We are going to work with Lyon, Auxerre, Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne, Nice and Lorient by taking their unhappy players. ‘In every squad there are two or three good players who aren’t getting a game for whatever reason. We will take them to Doncaster, put them in the shop window and sell them on with sell-on fees. Mahamadou Diarra has a c.v. with Monaco, Real Madrid and Lyon on it. I’ve told him if he comes to Doncaster he will be with us for six months before he’s playing in the Premier League. He was on €4.7m net at Real Madrid, but he’ll be playing for £2,000 a week if he comes to us.’
McKay lives 20 minutes from the club and his 14-year-old twins are promising players at the academy, given a chance to make the grade with Rovers. He has a healthy relationship with new boss Saunders, who started with two wins but saw his team lose 3-0 at home to Leeds last Friday.
McKay added: ‘Dean has a right of veto, but is he seriously going to turn down Mahamadou Diarra, a guy who’s got 150 games on his c.v. for Lyon and 120 for Real Madrid? I’m doing this to prove it can be done and I’ve been honest enough to admit I’m only here for the money. I don’t need the £100 and I probably won’t even invoice for it.’
