The Pesants Revolt

By: Dan | September 8th, 2009

Sometimes, the rule breaking by the rich and powerful is so blatant that even the proper authorities cannot ignore it, and are compelled to actually enforce the laws on the books. I suspect this is how we arrived at Chelsea’s transfer ban, and the investigations into the dealings of Manchester City and Manchester United. I am unsure whether to be distressed that poaching has become so commonplace that FIFA and UEFA had to become involved, or merely relieved that they actually went through with it. In either case, the prospect of limiting underage player poaching has given rise to some fairly ridiculous notions and arguments meant to shield the Premier League from some rightful criticism. That legal action has been taken at all must have come as quite a shock in certain corners of England, because a hasty torrent of corporate scandal defense attorney type arguments has been assembled to throw between English clubs and the oncoming freight train of sanctions.

One common argument I have seen is a piece of false equivalency based on a misunderstanding of what player poaching actually entails. The favored example in this argument is Real Madrid’s epic length pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo. The basic premise is that Real Madrid pursued Ronaldo through the media, even though Manchester United hadn’t explicitly offered him for sale to anyone, so Madrid were also guilty of poaching. The critical difference, of course, is that Madrid’s tactics, while irritating, were intended to create an atmosphere in which Manchester United would want to sell the player. Granted, this practice is morally dubious at best, but it does result in one club receiving a transfer fee for the lost player. This is not the same thing as a club like Lens developing a player, from early childhood, in its academy, which for a club the size of Lens is a major point of investment for their comparatively limited budget, and losing the player for no compensation to a club like Chelsea, who claim that French/EU law does not exist.

The main point of contention in this situation is whether or not the pre-contract agreements that underage players have to sign, professionally, with their developing club when they reach legal age constitutes a legally binding document. I am not an expert on European law, so I can only speculate based on a cursory reading of the EU regulations. The EU is clear on the principles of providing minors with ‘working conditions appropriate to their age.’ The actual application of these principles is left to individual member states, which brings us back to the pre-contract. I have also seen the argument made that, because minors are prohibited from signing a professional contract that the pre-contract is a) somehow illegal, or b) is irrelevant in terms of breach of contract. I’m not entirely sure how one side in this conflict can unilaterally declare the other’s legal system null and void. It seems like a pretty obvious place for a higher governing body to intervene, and according to their intervention, Chelsea has acted illegally.

Another old chestnut is that the rich and famous clubs doing their bargain shopping really have the best interests of the underage players at heart, and that the small clubs are only trying to hold on to them as long as possible in order to gouge the rich clubs later on in a legal sale of the player’s rights. There’s a nasty implication on the part of the big clubs that the clubs without international retail outlets and annual Champions League spots are engaging in skullduggery by guarding their own interests. Obviously, the small clubs want something in return for their investment as much as the big clubs; in my opinion, this is a matter of proportion. If a young, French hopeful doesn’t cut it as a professional at Auxerre Le Havre, the trauma is mostly confined to football. Having a big club spirit the same young hopeful away to a foreign country essentially makes him a full time professional on the spot, regardless of legal contract status. In that situation, the prospect of failure becomes very dire, as the only reason the player and his family are there in the first place is football. What happens to that set up if the kid is, ultimately, a failure? We don’t often see or hear of what happens in that situation; I have no idea what would happen to a hopeful in the reject pile, which is actually kind of disquieting.

Finally, there is an even older chestnut in store whenever something goes wrong for English clubs: conspiracy. After the Spanish-Franco-Swiss conspiracy to keep Chelsea out of the Champions League final, you might have thought that those continental masters of the cloak and dagger would lay off Mother Albion for a while, but no; they’ve gone for the kill. There’s probably not a rational answer to satisfy this conspiracy theory. I think it’s just a matter of old impulses being transferred to new targets. In the good old days, when an English team lost in Europe, you could just take a page from the book of Shankly and blame it on cheating ‘fancy men.’ Now that English teams are the fancy men, the blame has moved up to the administrators.

This situation has the potential to become a lasting precedent for protecting the interests of smaller clubs, so hopefully it won’t be watered down on appeal. We’ve become accustomed to a handful of clubs being able to buy any player they want on demand, let’s not extend that tolerance any further. The number of truly exceptional underage players who can step right into a first team is not high enough to begin justifying the widespread speculation, in the financial sense, of human assets under the guise of savvy buying.

As for the continued protestations coming from London and Manchester, I know it’s flippant, but my response is, in the words of Howard Cosell, “like what Rhett Butler said to Scarlett O’Hara.”