Soccer

» SimonMelville - Corruption in the EPL

In response to Corruption in the EPL posted by BrentSedo:
Transfers between clubs have always been part of the game -- even managers switching clubs mid-season. It's great when your club gets a great new player, but sickening when one leaves you.

I don't think that anyone really wants to see that change -- in fact, the decline of the transfer fee worries smaller clubs as they have always relied on producing players and then selling them to bigger clubs.

With the rise of the 'Bosman' transfer (where a players waits until his contract runs out before moving for nothing) there is now a gaping hole in the revenue section of most small teams' business plans.

If anything, the transfer regime will get more liberal. Just this week, an article in the Economist on the subject makes the valid point that footballers are treated totally differently to other high earning individuals.

To quickly quote the end of that article: "Roger Welch, a law lecturer at Portsmouth University, says that, if a test case were brought, the contracts system could well be struck down by the courts. And that would prove a much bigger shock to the beautiful game and its fans than news of a few bribes."

Obviously that suits the Economist's free market principles but that seems to be the way things are going.

Footballers are different to other high earning individuals of course, because they're sportsmen and sport is treated differently to other businesses (although increasingly this is changing).

The lack of loyalty and domination of money is deeply depressing but I think clubs would do better to accept the new reality and plan accordingly -- otherwise we will have no small clubs left at all.

-- posted by SimonMelville