JAKE’S ROAD REPORT is Gemini Sports' founder Jake Schuster’s weekly dispatch from the frontlines of professional football. Jake travels the globe meeting with club executives and generating candid insights around the intersection of AI and the beautiful game. These are raw thoughts and actionable intelligence, delivered every week. All meeting details are kept confidential, and specific intel is always omitted.

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Football's modern transfer market has become obsessed with one primary metric: resale value. The vast majority of clubs now operate primarily within a player trading model, targeting prospects 23 and under—occasionally stretching to 26—always with the goal of future profit maximization.

This singular focus has created a fascinating market distortion. Younger players command massively inflated fees, while experienced professionals over 28 are often undervalued, despite often offering superior immediate impact and proven reliability.

Think about the math: if you invest €20 million in a 28-year-old with zero resale value, that player only needs to generate €20 million in on-field value—through prize money, commercial revenue or other competitive success—to justify that investment. In essence, any additional contribution renders the acquisition essentially "free" from a value perspective.

Yet clubs consistently overlook this, fixating instead on hypothetical future sales. The result is a market where a 22-year-old prospect with minimal first-team experience commands €20 million based on potential resale value of €50 million by age 26, while a proven 28-year-old with immediate impact capability trades at a significant discount.

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of value creation in football. Not every signing needs to be a tradable asset. Some players exist to deliver immediate competitive advantage that younger ones simply can’t provide. Probability favors the known entity.

For clubs willing to properly sprinkle in experience to their trading model, the opportunities are outsized, and the irony is striking. We're systematically ignoring the most fundamental metric—the probability of immediate success and the impact of that. Smart clubs will recognize this market inefficiency and capitalize accordingly.

Value isn't just about what you can sell tomorrow. Sometimes, it's about what you can win today.