Summer mercato 2012

[Nalx]

Because their agents know that by bringing their players for free, the buying clubs have extra money to spend?

So we pay lots to players like Flamini and Mexes because agents play games with team management (not just us but in general). I was hoping for a logical reason, I guess my feelings that it doesn't exist were right

The transfer fee is usually much bigger than salary. And when you save the biggest chunk of money when buying a free agent, usually you're more willing to pay a realtively bigger salary for that player. Mexes is already an established player in serie A, a starter in Roma for years, while Flamini was impressive in his final year in Arsenal. Normally we must pay more than 10M for a player like this.

And neither of them is old. In fact, Mexes is around the age when a player can command his most, if not final, lucrative contract. Of course there are other factors too like are there other clubs after the free agent, how bad does the club need the player, how old/good is the player, how good are both parties at negotiation, et cetera et cetera; but I think, generally spaeaking, it's quite normal that a free agent receives a relatively higher salary.