Every club in the group reads its own squad, its own way, on its own scale. So the one asset the group actually has, all of that talent, cannot be seen as one thing by anybody.
The reason to own more than one club is that a player can be developed at one, proven at another, and sold from a third. The pathway is the thesis.
And then it runs into the thing nobody says out loud: the clubs cannot talk to each other about players, because they do not share a language. One club's nine is another club's seven. One academy grades on a scale nobody else uses. One club has three analysts and one has a spreadsheet and one has nothing at all.
So the player moves when somebody remembers him, and not when he is ready. And the group's biggest asset is managed on the strength of who happened to be in the room.
The pool was always the point. Nobody has ever been able to see the whole of it at once.
The organisation was always the asset. This is the first time anyone has been able to look at all of it.
And that is a rule. It does not care that nobody thought about it in August, and it does not care how much you have already invested in both.
The conflict is surfaced at the planning stage, while there is still a season in which to do something about it, rather than in the week the draw is made and the only options left are ugly.
Everything the group does that is governed is checked before it is done. That is the entire difference between owning a group and getting away with owning one.
Every player you own, on one ruler, across every club and every country. The moves priced before you make them. And the rules checked while there is still time to act.
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