They will overpay for potential if it is not their own personal money spending...........
That's nonsense... reality proves otherwise.
There is value in potential.
My point is that including potential, they are overpaying for Toure just as the overpaid for Lescott. Venture Capitalist or not, I think it is a stupid business decision. I don't think Mansour is actually approaching this as a business but rather as a plaything. That's the only way to justify so many bad financial decisions.
Potential very often has fleeting value since it's such a difficult quality to quantify... the very reason they end up overpaying for it is because inherent to the nature of untested/unproven ability, is the fact that one cannot efficiently and accurately asses its value.
In the final analysis the potential may fail to pan out and it may in hindsight in fact turn out to be "a stupid business decision", but this is the nature of the beast... house and car easy to value, human potential, not so much. You may be right that Mansour is approaching this as a plaything, but so too do many of the über-rich venture capitalists approach their pet projects.