Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack insists the days of the club letting key players leave the club for nothing are gone.
Interest is growing in the club’s leading goalscorer Bojan Miovski and other leading players at Pittodrie following the club’s solid start to the campaign.
But, having brought in more than £10 million in the last two years thanks to the sales of Sam Cosgrove, Scott McKenna, Calvin Ramsay and Lewis Ferguson, the Dons chairman believes the club now has a thriving recruitment plan in operation.
The Dons lost their 2017 Scottish Cup final midfield in the space of two years after Ryan Jack, Kenny McLean and Graeme Shinnie all departed in consecutive summers for next to no return – and Cormack insists the model had to change for the club to remain competitive.
He said: “We’re not going to go back to the situation where we got £100,000 for Kenny McLean because Norwich signed him on a pre-contract, or Ryan Jack and Graeme Shinnie (who) left for nothing.
“We’re in a good position as a club and part of our strategy has been to move from spending what we bring in to be competitive to investing more (than we bring in) in the first team and youth academy.
“This is a deliberate plan that we have, and we’re not in a position where we need to sell players.”
Aberdeen’s recruitment net has never been cast wider
The net has been cast wider than ever as the Dons expand their search for new players and Cormack believes the future is bright for the club.
He said: “We’ve been able to open doors now we’ve never opened before and people are looking at Aberdeen and saying ‘that’s the place I want to be for the next three or four years.’
“We paid 650,000 euros for Miovski and that’s not chump change.
“They turned down 2 million euros from Granada in the January window and we got him in the summer and we think it was a good investment for us.
“He’s loving it here, he is on a four-year contract and there is no urgency on our part.
“But the reality is, if people come in, do we have a conveyor belt of people coming through or we know we can buy?
“What we’ve been able to do is really invest in the youth academy, the recruitment team we’ve got and the analysts who are looking at these players across the world.
“This summer was the first time (head of recruitment) Darren Mowbray had a full window and we were in 16 countries.
“We’ve got scouts from across the world coming for the Celtic and Rangers games and they are not necessarily coming to watch them.
“It’s a good thing, as it means obviously we’re doing something right with the players.
“You sell players and trade them when it is the right deal for the club and ideally there are one or two years left on the contracts.”
Dons chairman fighting to keep young talent at Pittodrie
Recruiting players such as Miovski, Duk and Ylber Ramadani can help rebuild the first team squad, but Cormack believes a thriving youth academy is equally important.
With the club having enjoyed success in international tournaments at various youth levels this year, interest in their youngsters is also growing as clubs look to lure the talented young players away from the club.
Lewis Pirie is the latest teenager to be attracting interest from England with Wolves, Brighton, Everton and Sheffield United all keeping tabs on the player.
Pirie will be able to sign his first professional forms next month when he turns 16, and Cormack believes the Dons have a proven track record of first team progression for aspiring youngsters.
The chairman said: “The young academy guys are doing exceptionally well and we are victims of our own success.
“Our pitch to the under-16s is that there is a real pathway here now to getting into the first team and Jim Goodwin is totally on board with that.
“Are we going to keep all these players? Not necessarily, but we put our best foot forward with a player we want to sign professionally with us.
“Whether it’s Jim, (director of football) Steven Gunn or (under-18 coach) Barry Robson, they all go through the attributes of that player and what they need to do to reach the next level.
“There’s a pathway there and I think we do a super job at it.
“These under-16 players, the Scottish Government dictates any fee if someone comes in and tries to take these players and, relatively speaking, it is cheap.
“The Premier League clubs might throw £2million at signing 10 players and say to an agent ‘here’s £200,000 to give to a club, the player’s parents and themselves to bring a player in’ and they run that lottery.
“How many under-23 players have come to Aberdeen without having men against men experience and done well here?
“How many under-16 players who have left Aberdeen have done well?”