Speaking as part of the inaugural episode of the Get French Football News Presidents Podcast, Bordeaux Chairman Joe DaGrosa sought to explain his club’s summer transfer window policy which focused heavily on free transfer signings.

“First of all, it is really a combination of two things. The profile of players we were looking for did come about on a free transfer basis. At the end of the day, if you look at what has happened to our salaries, and everyone tends to focus on how much you spend on transfer costs, our salaries have gone up considerably and ultimately it is a trade-off. If you can pay €10m, €20m on a transfer and have X salary, or you can pay a guy double or triple that as a free agent. We have been investing, our investment is just taking the form of much higher salaries. But this also gets to a point that I made earlier, which is that we have very young talent. And ultimately we believe that they are going to play a very prominent role on the field, but they have to develop. And so we did not want to get into a situation where we are spending tons of money in a transfer situation, only to have that position potentially filled by a younger player later on down the road. So we have to take a holistic view, we start with what Paulo is looking for, we try to give him everything he needs to succeed, doesn’t mean we necessarily get there, but try whilst also being mindful about what our medium to long term vision is.”

Listen to the full exclusive interview below or on any of your usual podcast providers.

Click Here: Nigeria soccer tracksuit