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[Football] £14m player signng on fee
- Thread starter Weststander
- Start date
AZ Gull
@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
Contracts are two-sided agreements. For most of the "thousands of people" you mention, they don't have the security of employment for a set period of time (ie one, two, three years or more), unlike a football contract. A football club can't just decide they don't want to pay, for instance, Sam Baldock or Jason Steele any more, just because the player got injured or lost form (or a new manager comes in and doesn't want so many goalkeepers or strikers).
Player contracts are certainly different from the contracts that most "normal" people have, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are unfair to the footballer.
Spot on.
I didn't say that they were unfair to the footballer - just wondered how long transfer fees will last.
Are footballers' contracts that different from other people's? The last three jobs I've had were based on a year's contract that was renewed yearly - pretty standard practice these days. If I'd wanted to leave before the year was up, I'd have to have paid the salary that was due to me. For example, if I was on £30,000 pa and left with four months to go, I'd have to paid £10k to have been released from my contract.
I don't see a footballer's contract as much different from that - but the way to move to another job is very different. And I do wonder how long that can be sustained.
This. If I want to move to another 'club' I have to give notice. The duration of that notice is in my contract. If my 'club' wants to terminate my employment, it either has to sack me (for just cause, and only after a process) for my failure to meet the obligations stipulated in my contract, or it can lay me off with a package the nature of which is stipulated in UK law. Contract. That's the key word here.
Players often want to leave for many different reasons. Could be
1. They want to move t a different region or country
2. They are no longer getting a game because other players are signed after they sign to take their place in the team so they are no longer being allowed to do the job they signed up for in the first place EG - Jamie Murphy
3. They want to test themselves at a Higher level like the PL : EG - Dale Stephens a couple of years ago
What gives clubs the right to hold these players against their Will just because we want to sell them to the highest bidder. Or not sell them as the case was in Dale Stephens and of course we didn't stand in Jamie's way and eventually Dale got to the PL with Brighton further down the line. These are not the best examples but ultimately the Club held The Power over these two and that isn't right but the two opposite ends of the spectrum shows how clubs can exercise Power over human beings in that one was allowed his will to leave and the other wasn't.
I know Football is different but I personally don't think it should be. The changes will take years but it will happen.
Kalimantan Gull
Well-known member
You make some valid points, certainly, but there are counter-arguments
Clubs invest a lot of money in scouting, purchasing, coaching, developing, and looking after their players. No company could survive if they invested that much money in assets and resources just to see it go to a competitor for nothing. We know most football clubs rely in part on transfer fees to stay afloat.
Football players are a unique commodity as they are both the staff and asset. They are very well-paid in return for this. There are not many industries where the workers on the shop-floor get the highest wages, higher than the manager, higher than the owner. Its a socialist's dream really.
For every reason that the player wants to leave, the club may have reasons they want a player to leave:
1. Ineffectual
2. Injured
3. Causing a disruption to the team
4. Costing too much money in wages
but the club also can't get rid of them. Contracts are two-way and players would be wary of wanting them ripped up.
and of course players are not bound to clubs for life, they can leave for free at the end of their contract, Bosman saw to that.
The current system seems to work on the most part, but is still angled to towards players more as we have seen numerous cases of players downing tools and refusing to play properly to force transfers through.
The system in American sports is interesting, in that players must commit a fixed number of years to a club after being drafted and picked in the first team, usually on fairly low (in spirts terms) salaries. At the end of that period they enter free agency when they can sign for any team on whatever terms they can negotiate. If they are sold (traded) within the original fixed period, that doesn't alter the end date, so for example they can play 5 years for one team, get traded to another and then enter free agency six months later when the second team will get nothing back for them
Mine could. But I’m not sure how my motivation would react to having 14m in the bag; I’d most likely give up.
Justice
Dangerous Idiot
I watched back our game V Arsenal although at the time I thought JW played well he didn't really, low pass rate lazy when defending would IMO be a mistake for a club to spend out on him.
Aside from Messi and Ronaldo, there isn't a single footballer in the top 70 highest earning celebrities.
Footballers do get paid a lot of money at the top but football is arguably the most watched entertainment in the world.
Comparatively, they are not overpaid at all. P Diddy, Beyoncé and J. K. Rowling earn more every year than any footballer but we don't have any problem with that? Sorry, I just don't understand the collective complaint that a handful of the world's top players earn a lot of money.
Footballers do get paid a lot of money at the top but football is arguably the most watched entertainment in the world.
Comparatively, they are not overpaid at all. P Diddy, Beyoncé and J. K. Rowling earn more every year than any footballer but we don't have any problem with that? Sorry, I just don't understand the collective complaint that a handful of the world's top players earn a lot of money.
I actually liked your 4 ''Counter Arguments''
There isn't many times I am forced to look at my own views and think twice or am even part persuaded against my own beliefs. Especially on an issue like this. But you certainly made me think again.
You are correct we do still need the contracts on both sides to protect parties on either side but what part does a transfer fee pay play in all of this ?
Most Professional jobs in Law and Accountancy and Engineering and Surveying and HR and Management and Plumbing and Electricians they often train people and invest in their schooling but even after they qualify they move on without a transfer fee
That's true: although in many cases, if they do leave before a specified time, they have to pay back the cost of their training. That was the case with my sister's post-graduate training and it's quite common in tech jobs too.
I don't think anyone is saying that a footballer should be allowed to leave with no compensation at all - as people have pointed out, clubs and players have contractual obligations that need to be me, but transfer fees often go beyond this. I wonder whether someone will bring a test case about this at some point in the future.
And to be clear, I don't see any change any time soon - it's just that something may well change,.
Earnings are confidential. Pretty much all the figures we see are a guess or a leak from the club or agent and there is no way to confirm how accurate the leak is. I remember reports that Defoe was on £60k, £80k and £120k a week.
What about when a record company owns the rights to a musician, and they can only sell music through that company?
It works the other way too though, when a player is injured, or isn't putting the effort in, they still get paid every single week until their contract expires.
If a player is concerned they might not be first choice all the time, and wants to be playing every week, they shouldn't sign long contracts, the choice is theirs.
In accountancy (don't know about other professions) the company gets years of cheap labour out of the trainees which massively outweighs the cost of training that they pay for. I know of firms whose business model used to be based around this, knowing that the majority of staff would move on once they qualified for a better paid job.
It's not really the same as developing an "asset" which goes from a value of zero to millions only to have to give it away for free.
My issue isn’t with top footballers earning a lot, it’s the shit ones who earn a lot.
I suppose it is a bit of a pisser that Robbie Savage is so rich. But then again, Adele is much richer.
Plus watching Savage play football could be quite entertaining (in a Joey Barton pantomime way) whereas Adele's music just makes me feel mildly nauseous and angry. And it's everywhere so more difficult not to experience.
Actually I've talked myself round. Even shit footballers being paid loads isn't an issue.
brightonrock
Dodgy Hamstrings
- Jan 1, 2008
- 2,482
Is it though, in America? The amounts being paid are publicised annually by the MLS, for example, since they technically own the contract. I'm sure it's the same in the NBA/NFL?
Absolutely this. I don't particularly care if Messi earns £25m a year or whatever - it's no different in my book from Tom Hanks getting £10m for a film or Beyonce earning similar royalties for an album.
My issue is that bang average footballers can earn six figure annual salaries in the third or even fourth tier of English football. I remember watching Miguel Llera, that cretin with the scrumcap for Sheffield Wednesday, and thinking...this guy is probably on five or six grand a week, to kick people, be permanently out of position and shank it 70 yards into touch. I could do that, I genuinely could. I couldn't do better, but I certainly couldn't do worse. 0% pass completion, couldn't trap a bag of sand, and giving up a dozen fouls a game. He is the worst footballer I've ever seen in the flesh, and he was first pick for a Championship side, earning probably a quarter of a million quid or more a year. That is MENTAL, that he could earn ~8x the average annual salary of the fans sitting in the crowd, and they could do the same job.
People being good at their job and getting paid loads for it are not the problem. The problem is when a given market gets so saturated because of the attraction of those outliers, that dreadful wannabes can piggyback on that popularity and earn a disgusting living without actually being any good at their job. Imagine if any idiot who could pick up a guitar and play a couple of chords could be paid £500k a year, just because Muse or U2 or Kings of Leon exist and sell out stadiums. That's the equivalency.
The problem is with the clubs fighting over a small pool of potential talent. As we have seen, it isn't easy getting a 15 goal a season striker in at the top level, so in an act of desperation most clubs rather than doing due diligence and scouting for the best deals, throw money at the problem. I do think that there is an issue when a 35 year old Defoe is on £100k pw. The players are aware that they're a commodity and when in demand they have to capitalize on that, their careers are short and like anyone in any industry would, they are completely within their rights to attempt to get as much money as they can. The clubs should do better and refuse to overpay average players, but they don't. We are very lucky here supporting Brighton as we don't seem to do this.
There is also the question of what makes a player shit? Benteke is the clear example here. At Villa he was young, hungry, and in form. Got a massive move to Liverpool, didn't quite work out in the first year and Palace came in thinking they were buying the villa player. They stumped up £32million and pay him (apparently) £120k a week. They were buying a proven PL goal scorer at the time from a big club. Now he cuts a comedy figure. Is he an objectively shit player though? No, he had three great seasons carrying a substandard team in the PL and that is a long time to just be lucky. Is he currently deserving of his salary? Absolutely not. By offering long contracts, clubs protect their assets so when the players perform, things like the Can issue don't happen, the otherside of the coin is that they don't perform and won't renegotiate a contract and the club are lumped with an overpaid player.
TL;DR - Clubs take gambles on long term contracts. Can only judge if it was a great deal in hindsight.
On the topic of Can, he is clearly a very good player who is still young, and has already made two quite bold moves to improve his career prospects (Bayern to Leverkusen, Leverkusen to Liverpool). He clearly has been unsettled by Klopp often playing him as a centre-back, and I'm sure he's planned to leave for a long time. Him and his agent have clearly fought for the best deal for him, but that has only come about by his hard work after leaving Bayern.