Wolves Transfer Banter

22 Jul 2026 19:07:00
Wolves go after players they know they won't get or can't afford.
Fans think great.
They leave it until the last weeks.
To get fans excited.
It doesn't take a genious to realise we are being taken for mugs.
Every season.

22 Jul 2026 20:26:02
Well, just watching our first friendly. Hardly a team of superstars out there today, so they'd better crack on with getting a few in. Btw, if anyone else had a problem with Wolves TV, you can watch it on Maidenhead's YouTube live stream.

22 Jul 2026 22:04:46
Thanks Long.

22 Jul 2026 14:56:18
I see James Collins left the U21s.

22 Jul 2026 14:13:11
Tolu surely wasn’t isolated as the training session was cancelled (can’t be isolated from something that never happened).
Maybe this was done to avoid breach of FIFA player protection/isolation rules, let's hope so.
The sooner this ego maniac bully is got rid of the better.

22 Jul 2026 16:16:24
It was cancelled due to him refusing to leave.

22 Jul 2026 16:47:33
Oxleymoorewolf, Wolves have to be careful with FIFA's new rules. According to all reports, he would not leave the training ground. Look at my comments below, and see what Edoo1's said. I'm right, that's why I've said Wolves need to be careful.

22 Jul 2026 19:02:51
Starting a fight last season. Refusing to leave training this week when ordered to. That's gross misconduct in my book. FIFA will side with us. If he wasn't worth anything to sell on, I would rip his contract up, but that would make him a free agent, unfortunately. Sell him for what we can get, and good riddance.

22 Jul 2026 11:43:14
Flea - creating a new post rather than reply to a thread that is at the very bottom of the page so doubt if many will read it.

We were discussing non-football wages from the latest accounts which are somewhere in the region of £60m+, (excluding NI), when scaled back to 12 months. This assumes £71m, again excluding NI, for the 12 months for the squad which is probably at the higher end for most public estimates.

You correctly identified that Nathan will earn more than the average non football wage which works out at roughly 172k pa excluding NI but his circa 625k pa, excluding NI - the highest paid director according to the accounts barely moves the dial.
Even if you assume the manager and his assistants pull in £10m pa excluding NI, which is highly unlikely to put it mildly, this only moves the dial slightly and you are still talking about somewhere in the region of £143k excluding employers NI.


Maybe an accountant or two and doctor might get there but in reality the vast vast majority of the rest - groundsmen, cleaners, catering and retail staff, ticket desk, office staff etc will earn nothing like that or even a third of that.

Maybe it is payoff to previous managers or agents fees although again these would have to be enormous to make any of this make sense.
Also if they are included in wages what makes up the 40m of other costs - excluding interest - the club incurs. A high utilities bill, rates, postage stamps and policing etc etc?

I did see a poster on another site claiming that the apprentices were all on monster salaries, multiples of the money City and Chelsea were paying, but I don't believe the moon is made of cheese or that the earth is flat either.

22 Jul 2026 14:18:44
Apologies, Nathan earns nearer 680k - still a non issue of course.

22 Jul 2026 19:03:24
TFOG, I love your posts, you are very good at probing the numbers. I personally have not researched the accounts, which I have wanted to do, but other events have delayed me.
Can I understand from what you have said that you feel money has been taken out of the club? If so, may I pose a question: would this show in dividends to the holding company, i.e.

Fosun? Or have I missed the point. Happy to be put right.

22 Jul 2026 21:06:35
Wimborne, many, many thanks for that v kind comment.
In answer:
No dividends have been taken out of the club.
That would be illegal, as Wolves do not have distributable reserves.
However, Wolves can, as many companies do, pay their parent/sister company/(ies) for a variety of things such as management services or marketing, etc. etc.
Would this normally be reported via the "wages" item? Well, no, but as stated above, very little makes sense in the accounts, which are obviously deliberately opaque or limited in information.
The accounts do show, however, that Wolves have had substantial dealings with other parts of the Fosun group - being owed (£67m in 2025), and owing (£248m in 2025), massive sums by/to companies within the Fosun empire.
What were these activities - was it simply lending and borrowing between different parts of the group?
If so, why would Wolves be lending to Fosun? The amount owed is mind-blowingly high, and certainly contradicts the idea that Wolves were allegedly standing alone without financial support from Fosun.

(Note, Wolves' net debt in total, including to Fosun, banks and other clubs, is roughly £300m).
Regardless of what they are, though, why are Wolves carrying on such massive interactions with sister companies within the Fosun empire?

PS I wrote a piece on the ten-year net transfer balance that, hopefully, you would appreciate.
I compared it to both house restoration and car depreciation!
Sadly, as it is at the end of a thread that will have moved down the page, I doubt many will have read it.
Whilst, boringly about numbers again, I thought it explained the issue - and the massive problems associated with it - fairly simply so that people who don't understand accounts/numbers could get an idea of the shortcomings in the transfer dealings in number terms over the last 10 years.
Do have a look and let me know what you think?

22 Jul 2026 11:30:25
Hopefully Wolves don’t have the issue with Tolu that they’ve had with other players where they can’t get rid of him.

Will it be one loan after another, with Wolves desperately hoping that some club as stupid as Wolves will sign him permanently?

It’s staggering that Ki-Jana Hoever is still at the club.

It says everything that Sheff Utd would rather sign Matt Doherty on a free than sign Hoever for what would be a relatively low fee.

22 Jul 2026 12:55:23
It's going to be an interesting line up at Maidstone tonight. I know we'll not be up to full complement, no Raul or other world cuppers, I'd imagine. So, ideal opportunity for Rodrigo Lima Lopez etc to show us something.

Will we see Bently in goal? The youngsters up front, who in mf?
It's a big deal for Maidstone and a thank you from us, but I'd imagine they'd like a 'win' and might test us more than we'd like.
Should be an interesting game.

22 Jul 2026 12:56:51
Blame Real Madrid.

22 Jul 2026 12:58:45
Sorry all, Maidenhead, predictive text. Or my old age medications!!!

22 Jul 2026 13:13:24
Nice one, Abbey. Could have been worse and changed it to Minehead, the pitch would be a bit pebbly down there.

22 Jul 2026 15:31:29
Gawd, Major Frank, I vaguely recall Minehead from my childhood, mainly a long boring drive in me old man's van. Lol.

22 Jul 2026 10:45:48
Wolves could be in trouble over the Tolu Arokodare situation. Under new Fifa rules you can't isolate a player or put him in a bomb squad. Or have him training with the under 21s. And you can not bar him from training you have to intergrate him back into the squad.

If you don't the player can apply for his contract to be ripped up and sue the club for the remaining wages of his contract. If i have any details
Wrong i hope Ed00s'1 could put things right.

{Ed001's Note - they would be able to counter with any issues of behaviour, which could constitute breach of contract by the player. I think it will end up with the contract just being ripped up.}

22 Jul 2026 13:05:48
So Wolves get nothing for him.

22 Jul 2026 13:29:32
HandsomeLad, that's the way FIFA have it now with the new rules: either rip his contract up or he can go to FIFA and say this and that. Wolves then have to counter what he says, and hope they win, or he rips his contract up and sues for wages for the remainder of his contract.

22 Jul 2026 12:21:52
Ed001's thank you for that but that doesn't help Wolves with this situation.

22 Jul 2026 09:37:40
I think Arokodare needs reminding just how privileged he is to be earning annual wages for most, every week just for playing football.
On that note I see that 23 million people have signed a petition to get Argentina kicked out the World Cup and heavily sanctioned.

The statistics around their progress to the Final make more than interesting reading and there have also been calls for Infantino to go as well due to his part in all of this.

22 Jul 2026 10:56:00
Unlikely to happen as they're one of the 6 hosts for the next World Cup.

22 Jul 2026 13:06:54
Nobody will care if Argentina is not one of the host countries.

22 Jul 2026 05:35:15
Wolves training was cancelled yesterday following Tolu Arokodare’s refusal to leave the pitch when asked not to train with squad.

Extra security enforced today at Compton Park to make sure he was not at training ground.
What's happening with the team man?

22 Jul 2026 06:19:15
Not the team.Tolu is not a good person to have around, he's obviously toxic and Cesar wants him gone.

22 Jul 2026 07:55:51
Fine him and ban him from the ground and Compton, he is a disgrace.

22 Jul 2026 10:10:10
Jesus, this guy is just so toxic! I was reading online that the one caveat Edwards had this window was that he refused to have him in the team after the Mane bust up. It really does sum up the window we had this time last year, and, as TFG shows below, the years leading up to it.

We paid an insane £23m for Tolu. Remember how all last year Jeff was telling us that it's about the personality as much as the player?! What an absolute crock of s***! As always, thanks for nothing, Jeff. 🤮

22 Jul 2026 12:49:45
He was probably told by his agent to go to training, because it is in his best interest to be there.
A one-off scuffle is nothing to be all upset about - there must be more to it.

21 Jul 2026 23:59:23
Ten years with Fosun seems a lifetime. Started off promising a lot, challenging top six clubs, European football, FA Cup semi finals, good players, entertaining football. It couldn't go on, could it? It couldn't.

Look where Wolves are now. While we struggle to attract top players, clubs like Villa seem to have plenty of cash to buy players. I wonder if it's to do with ambitious owners.

22 Jul 2026 11:07:15
Villa generated more revenue to start with. However, their owners have invested in the ground and facilities and done their best to develop the club with the financial restrictions in place. The other key factor was sacking Gerrard and getting in Unai Emery. He's been a massive part of their success on the pitch.

21 Jul 2026 20:19:22
Does anyone know in the 10 years Fosun have owned us the total money spent and brought in? Will be interesting to see, please.

22 Jul 2026 08:56:05
From Transfermarkt figures in EUR, since the summer of 2016, the club have spent EUR962.1m on incoming players and have sold players to a total of EUR748.3m.

Total loss on players over the 10 seasons is EUR214m.

22 Jul 2026 11:15:42
Nice1, good thanks for that... So, Fosun have spent money on us all, be it borrowed or loaned against the ground, etc.... The problem lies with how we spent it on rubbish, it seems to me.

22 Jul 2026 14:16:41
Note, whatever way it was spent, Euro 21m pa is a ludicrously low sum.
Imagine you are attempting to improve/extend your house, whilst, of course, maintaining it.
However, your income is seemingly nowhere near enough to do this, so the vast majority of your expenditure does not come from your income, but from selling off the fixtures and fittings from your house and strips of land from the garden.
In other words, the net expenditure is not even enough to maintain the house, let alone improve it.
Back to football, the squad inexorably gets older (and contracts run out), so you have to spend just to stand still.
The amount the accountants use for that is called depreciation.
Think of your car; you buy it for, say, 20k, and intend to run it into the ground and scrap it for, as good as, damn it, nothing, and then buy another car. An accountant would recognise that the car is worth less each year and would "charge" the difference called "depreciation".


In theory, you move that cash to one side, as if it was a real charge that had to be paid, and, at the end of the period, when the car is deemed to be worth nothing, you should have 20k put aside.
Theoretically, enough to buy another car - except, of course, for inflation!
Wolves have not been spending net anywhere near even the basic depreciation figure, which last year was circa 80m annualised, and this is despite the fact that the football depreciation figure is far too low anyway, as it only charges against the players acquired and charges nothing for home-grown players or players on second contracts.
Consequently, far from improving the squad/house, Wolves have basically gutted it, and it is now a wreck, unfit for habitation/Premier League football!