But that would be no better than just doing nothing and letting him go to Ipswich and taking the 30% of the profit.
Even if we’re just talking PSR they can get 4m of pure profit from doing nothing. If no one is willing to pay more than 18 there’s no trickery that makes them more money than that.
Maybe they want the player, maybe they’d make more profit in the future (not guaranteed). But however you massage the numbers they’d be paying 9m net just to own a player they already owned. It’s wastage.
If we hadn't have sold him - as you say, he'd still be our player. Fair enough and right. But we sold him and 5m (or so) went onto the accounts. We then take a hit of around 9m in buying him back which amortised shows a hit on the accounts of around 2m per season. So, if we sell him by the third summer we're still in a profit in terms of the 5m and two summers of paying 2m. We've bought and sold our own player and made 1m. Then we sell again. And make even more profit. Not sure its wastage, more creative.