The transfer fee paid is an investment - i don’t know how that is reflected on a the balance sheet in football but if we assume a straight line where the cost of the asset is spread across its life he would have 1/5 left so roughly the same as his wages. However wages are an operating expense so aren’t anywhere yet. So here are the scenarios:I'd be interested in getting an accountants view of this as I'm assuming their transfer fee is no longer "on the books" or it's minimal debt, whereas the wage commitment is huge.
I think even Levy could see the economics of this. He just needs to get over his pride about doing a good "deal".
If he went on a free but the club took his wages in we would have to bring forward the last chunk of the transfer fee but would never incur the last year of wages. Note we are still £10m better off - we bring forward the last transfer fee but would still have paid it eventually
scenario 2 - we pay up his contract. We incur a £20m loss now instead of £10m in expenses over the next year and a £10m loss next year.
So before taking tax, interest or anything into account and assuming his wages are £10m for simplicity if we paid someone £9.5m to take him or paid him £9.5m now to go away we’d be better off than keeping him, quite apart from getting rid of a problem. If we are haggling over million or so it would be insane to risk not getting rid of him