Manchester United have refused to bow to the financial demands of Erling Haaland's representatives - and so they should.
The club's stance means they have missed out on a young striker so badly wanted by both their manager and supporters.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer could argue that it was still a deal worth doing given the £18million release clause for a player who, on the open market, would command a fee at least four times that amount. That is a fair point, of course.
But instead, the 19-year-old is joining Borussia Dortmund after the German club agreed to give his agent Mino Raiola and father Alf-Inge Haaland a significant share of his future sales value.
Raiola has denied his financial demands were to blame for the collapse of Haaland's move to United, instead saying the player simply didn't want to join the club.
But this agent has milked United before. Raiola, it is said, made a staggering £41m from the deal that took Paul Pogba to United for a world record £89.3m in 2016. He would clearly have a big say in Haaland's next move and that power is something United's hierarchy were not willing to accommodate.
Raiola was also handsomely rewarded for his part in Romelu Lukaku's move to United in 2017, while Alexis Sanchez's agent landed a £10m fee for what proved a disastrous transfer in January of last year.
It has since been said that United are increasingly reluctant to sanction excessive fees for agents - it was cited as the reason they did not sign Yerry Mina from Barcelona - but when such a policy means bypassing a teenager who has scored 28 goals in 22 games for Red Bull Salzburg this season, it can leave a sour taste among supporters and even management.
Again, that is understandable. In the long run, the numbers on this deal could seem cheap if Haaland's free-scoring form continues and he emerges as one of Europe's top marksmen.
But this is about so much more than one player, and for that United should be applauded.
It is simple market economics that allows Raiola and Haaland's father to turn a proposed contract into a ransom note. If two super clubs such as Dortmund and United are vying for his signature, the representatives can name their price. After that, they pick the club who agrees to their demands or, as has been the case in previous deals, even betters them.
Raiola, for his part, has blamed United for the collapse of the deal and insisted it was Haaland who turned them down.
But in United refusing to entertain their financial stipulations, perhaps next time a transfer rival goes up against them - such as Dortmund - they will not feel so pressured into signing away what amounts to part ownership of their player.
It will also lower the expectations of those dealing with United, whose lure and financial packages will remain attractive and competitive, even without giving in to those eye-watering demands.
United removing themselves from the market for such agent-incentivised deals reduces the power of those who seek to take so much money out of football - it is one less club for them to play against another.
Because there are two strands to this. Firstly, there is the fact that, in 2018-19, Premier League clubs spent £260m on agent fees. That is a quarter of a billion pounds leaving the game in one year alone, money that could be far better invested in the development of players, coaches and facilities, not to mention a reduction in ticket prices.
But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is high time a stand was made against the level of influence some agents are exerting over their clients.
Solskjaer flew to Salzburg to meet Haaland and, given they worked together previously at Molde, you would presume they have a good relationship.
What if the player would have preferred to join his compatriot at Old Trafford? Sadly, for him, it is likely any such wish would be rendered secondary given Dortmund's agreement to significantly reward those around him.
Former United captain Bryan Robson, writing in his 2007 autobiography, revealed that he pulled out of a deal to take Robbie Keane to Middlesbrough because of an agent's 'ridiculous' demands. At the time, he warned: 'What concerns me far more than the money being paid to players is the money going out of the game to agents.
'The problem nowadays is that a club very rarely deals directly with a player. Agents unsettle players to force moves and then demand massive fees to do the deal.
'I sit there in amazement at some of the things they ask for. You can have a situation where an agent does a deal for a player in a £2m transfer and then wants 10 or 20 per cent on top. They must think we've got rocks for brains.'
Rocks for brains? Given the manner in which clubs have facilitated the inflation in agents' fees since Robson's warning some 12 years ago, he was clearly onto something.
That is why it is time for clubs such as United to start throwing a few of those rocks back in the direction of the agents and family members who seek to hold them to ransom. You can only hope others join their stand.