Just what is Platini up to?
We’ve been talking on email a bit today about the recent flood of complaints and investigations by FIFA regarding the transfers and movement of U-18 players around Europe. It seems like soccer’s ruling body is about to embark upon a long and difficult quest to obtain a wee bit of parity in the sport, at least in my opinion.
Earlier this summer, Platini threw out some casual references to a plan they were hatching at UEFA headquarters whereby teams with unmanageable piles of debt might find themselves excluded from European domestic competition in favor of those clubs operating sensibly and at a high level within their means.
This would be Part 1 of their thinly-veiled efforts to single out the big European clubs and threaten them with punishments, and the efforts to investigate nefarious teen player “trafficking” to bigger clubs, along with censure and fines, seems to be their next weapon.
While the Chelsea ban will likely not hold, you can expect there will be some form of revised punishment that will then be the precedent for all the other cases that will inevitably follow. It will give smaller clubs some leverage against the player-hoarding giants, and we can expect to see many other big clubs implicated in this illicit practice.
Though nothing has been lodged yet, I’m sure Liverpool, Arsenal and Spurs will be roped in, along with big clubs on the continent. One wonders if the Lionel Messi deal, already complicated and protracted due to Argentina’s quirky transfer rules, has all its paperwork above board ahead of a possible UEFA knock on the door.
UPDATE: Thanks to Hockalees for spotting that Crewe, who’d originally complained to the FA about an unnamed EPL club, have since named Liverpool as the club in question.
Above all this, we were discussing a little as to what these actions might mean for soccer in general, at least the effects it will have upon the status quo in Europe.
Some of our thoughts after the jump, presented in the conversation order in which they were had, and then I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Will all of this lead to the seemingly inevitable breakaway league?
LB: Throwing up some Breaking News now… FIFA are looking at Man Citeh for their signing of some teenager named Jeremy Helan. They’re coming after everyone!
The Likely Lad: every (english) club, that is. I’m sure everything Barca did with Messi and all Madrid’s dealings have been tip-top.
LB: I think FIFA is gonna eventually get parity… it starts with s**t like this, then the casual mention of threats from UEFA that teams might be excluded from the CL if they don’t reduce their debts. Then again, those clubs targeted, aka the creme de la creme, would just go and form their own independent league, but it’d be interesting to see how that plays out. Would FIFA/UEFA recognize a breakaway league?
Something happened in cricket where an indie/money league was formed in India recently, and all the world’s best players wanted to be involved (it was during the winter when cricket is mostly dormant, plus the money up for grabs was insane). Then cricket’s ruling board intervened and threatened that those players taking part could be expelled from representing their countries, but they eventually backed down.
Fascinating times lay ahead!
Spectator: I was having a similar though over the weekend… UEFA/FIFA’s witchhunt on signing players and lowering debt is going to make the top teams more likely to break away. The insanity is that Platini is trying to enforce equality/parity, which in theory is a very good thing, but he is doing it in such an asinine way that is essentially fascistic.
The stupid thing is, it’s actually a GOOD thing for football if the best young players end up at the best academies — granted there should be fair compensation, but this whole notion of “robbing” youth players makes no sense. That’s what the entire sport is built upon, if you are a good young player than eventually you get to move up to a better club.
LB: I guess Platini’s trying to protect these smaller clubs’ and their investment? I mean, the bigger clubs just wait for all the minnows to find players, build ‘em up to a level they find acceptable before swooping in and taking. Because they’re buying them so young, there’s not much compensation to be paid yet, and therefore the small clubs lose out on a ton of potential income. Palace tried pursuing legal action against Spurs over John Bostock, but for the most part, it seems a little shady.
I’d liken it to college sports here, I guess? Kid commits to small university, then backs out as bigger school comes in with “financial incentives” and other s**t provided by the boosters in order to seal the deal. NCAA cracks down on those violations all the time, right? Or at least every other season there is a high-profile punishment against a big school?
The Likely Lad: the college comparison is a bit off. guys go to big schools for the exposure, etc. there have been cases of guys getting money off boosters, agents, but there’s no proof, and very little speculation that big schools actually pay or offer shady incentives directly to players.
LB: Fair point.. I’m just trying to start the discussion a bit, although the exposure issue is surely a factor in some 16-year-old Ivorian picking Chelsea’s academy over a continued stint at LOSC Lille or whatever, right? Not to mention the money… sure in college it comes from outside sources but there still has to be some collusion there, doesn’t there? It’s not like the big school just innocently watches all these kids switch their letters of intent at the last minute and thinks “wow, we got lucky this year with all these freshmen that picked us in the 11th hour…”
Sven: …and, the bigger clubs just stockpile talent. They buy up as many starlets as they want in hopes that it becomes merely a numbers game that one of them will ‘hit’ (God knows how many random 16-year old midfielders Rafa has bought over the past few years). Then, these kids who would have been playing back for their smaller club eventually wash out at, say, Chelsea, b/c of the amazing senior queue of talent ahead of them.
I honestly wouldn’t have a problem with a ban on under-18 transfers. You could argue it both ways, surely there are pro’s and con’s on either side, but to think a younger player can’t become great unless he’s at a G-16 club is ludicrous.
LB: if anything, he’d get more opportunities at the smaller club who need him more than he needs them. At some big starry-eyed facility, he just becomes a squad number, and the big clubs just loan those kids out anyway for years and years before selling to League Two on the cheap!
The Likely Lad: (regarding college FB comparison) but that rarely happens the way you describe it, LB. I agree with your bigger point, but I think it’s a flawed comparison.
Spectator: TFA and I were emailing about this last week. My take is that EU labor laws (same as the US)
prevent minors from signing binding contracts. So, the current system is that you can sign any youth player but have to pay compensation for the training. But, once a player signs a pre-contract, which is enforceable when the player turns 18, than the purchasing team has to negotiate just like any other player. My understanding is that Chelsea is accused of violating this because Kakuta allegedly had a pre-contract in place, but there’s some dispute over this.
Platini is going to lobby the EU to change the labor laws to allow for an U18 transfer ban — but, much like the 5+4 plan — he can’t institute the change unless the EU allows it.
(Ed. Note: they’re working on a longer piece about the Kakuta case that’ll be published in due course)
The Likely Lad: there’s no real comparison, as no other sport has competitive, moneyed leagues in so many nations. In terms of how clubs send rogue scouts and agents into the boonies, baseball is your best bet. Reps for major league teams, led by local guides and embedded scouts sign 16 year olds out of latin america. They promise them tons, then often develop them for 5 or 6 years (until theyre all of 21 years old) then decide to either release or trade them for very little. of course, some of those purchases work– and if they hit .300 they’ve done a great job.
Like in europe, only the big teams can afford to take these chances. Still, I’ve never heard of a caribbean club accusing an MLB team of tempting a young kid already on a contract, partly because they play at different times of the year. You have to remember that in no other sport than football do people buy and sell contracts in that way.
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So we’re getting the conversation started, but what do you guys think? What will be the biggest takeaway from these recent investigations? From investigations and charges still to come?
I’m all for parity but I’m not sure how to go about getting other than some kind of salary cap. It seems like a ban on transfers of kids under 18 might work but would it simply mean that small clubs invest even more resources in developing talent only to lose players to bigger clubs when they turn 18? There would be no incentive for larger clubs to scout and develop young players. They would simply buy all the 18 year olds who look promising. I think the NBA’s rule requiring draftees to be out of high school for a year is highly problematic but I wonder if something can’t be done to require players to play domestically until they were 20 (or 19 or some other arbitrary number). I certainly wouldn’t want to institute something like baseball’s former reserve clause but I think that the team that nurtures and develops young players has a right to at least some service from that player.
I think it’s a complex argument, and one that you guys have hashed out pretty well. Another good look at it, and one that most don’t look at was written about at Run of Play. Brian talks about the player and his choice to go to a big club or stay where he is. How can he be made to sign a contract that binds him when he isn’t old enough to drive or drink or whatever. He isn’t old enough in general. So, say he picks this small club near his home town, but then gets calls from the big boys asking to come play for them, why shouldn’t he take it? Better training, better competition. Now, if there was a ban on transfers under 18, then this kid who made a decision at the ripe old age of 14 or 16 to play with his hometown club won’t be able to move to a different club. I just don’t see that as being right for the player.
The hometown club should receive compensation from the big club, but it’s not like the big club “stole” the player from the hometown club. the kid wanted to go.
i think a ban on transfers under 18 would hurt the development of young talent.
here is the link to the run of play article. he explains what i am trying to say much better and more coherently.
http://www.runofplay.com/2009/09/04/chelsea-kakuta-and-what-childhood-means-in-football/
I’m curious how this “big team ‘steals’ starlet from local French club” situation is any different to the setup in Holland where every team is basically a feeder team for PSV and Ajax. Perhaps, like in Holland, if we all accept this as the way in which business is done, we can worry about more important things like whether or not our stadium is the greenest in the country.
@Goat:
small clubs are small b/c they don’t have the money. Big clubs are the ones w/ money. Regardless of what age you allow international transfers this will remain. A salary cap is the only way to level the field, although it really ends up punishing more popular/successful clubs. Why should ManU only be allowed to spend as much as Stoke for players?
Playing Devil’s Advocate (pun intended) obviously but just saying that the cap is tricky.
@Likely Lad
In Baseball, they aren’t paying Caribbean clubs cash for the player. The player is paid directly with a signing bonus to join an MLB team. When the MLB team signs the player, he comes and joins one of the MLB team’s minor league teams.
The shady part is that they set up these baseball academies run by some shady latin managers (agents) who broker deals between the latin player and MLB team, usually taken a large % of the signing bonus. The riskiest thing is that many of the players are using false birth certificates to appear younger, and there have been several scandals where the player was 2-3 years older than advertised.
Since the compensation is going directly to the player, and not a club, I don’t see how baseball is a good example of this situation.
All a salary cap does is limit the free market on players, and allow owners to make even more money than they already do.
Well Crewe can kiss goodbye those friendlys with Liverpool that brought them in money, f**kfaces. Yeah your “prestigious academy” as the media keeps calling it whose best products are Dean Ashton and Danny Murphy can suck my dick.
We talked about this in my European Union class today, I think I’m going to turn it into my paper for that class, and possibly my thesis.
And my thesis will include no less than one “suck my dick” per page.
That shouldn’t be a problem, Georger. Nobody actually reads those things anyway.
Regarding the Liverpool thing, is that really even tapping up? Liverpool made an offer, Crewe refused, and now the kid’s pissed because he heard that he could’ve been playing for one of the Big Four instead of being stuck in League Two. I’d be pissed too, and I’d probably demand a transfer because the club wasn’t willing to help me grow.
That’s where this is tricky, too; there’s such a fine line between tapping a player up and just being a preferred destination. Clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool draw players based on name recognition alone where a club like Crewe or Lens maybe can’t; that’s not tapping up, it’s just how it works.
/insert urban legend about me putting in a few “Are you still paying attention?” comments into the statistical methods chapter of my dissertation
“Regarding the Liverpool thing, is that really even tapping up?”
Doesn’t seem like they did anything wrong to me, but I would almost guarantee it gets the most media attention this week. I mean why would any kids want to play for Liverpool’s Academy, it’s not like they’ve won two of the last four FA Youth Cups. Oh wait.
The part about this whole thing that I don’t understand is the training compensation. If FIFA/UEFA would just establish a precedent that a big club has to pay ten times what they do now, then this whole thing wouldn’t be an issue. If Liverpool had to pay £2M to sign a random 15 year old, rather than 200k, they probably wouldn’t do it.
I’m not sure how Spurs are going to get into trouble for the Bostock transfer.
Jordan thought that Bostock wanted to sign a new contract with Crystal Palace. Then Bostock changed agents, Jordan is pissed at new agent and the stepfather for changing course and not wanting to stay at Crystal Palace, because Chelsea/Arsenal/Spurs were all interested in him.
Then Crystal went to battle over the valuation of Bostock. Jordon wanted 5 mil for him, and an arbitrator ruled on 700K upfront and roughly 1.25 mil eventually, with some add ons.
I was just happy that Liverpool had made an effort to sign a striker this summer.
@NYK: I totally knew someone who knew someone who knew someone who did that. Now I know that it was you.
@knocsucow00 never said that mlb teams buy players from caribbean teams. i was making the point about scouts sitting in the weeds down in the boonies and picking off young players.