Swansea City should shut the doors on Southampton deals

[Swanjaxs]

And to think we all found it hilarious when Martin started to poach MK Swans finest (at first)
If he's prepared to pay what we want then more power to his magnificently manicured elbow I say

 

[RodgerTheDodger]

I'd read some bollocks on here over the years but that takes the biscuit. Unless there is something written into a player's contract (minimum release clause or similar), the club that holds the player's registration can decide whatever figure they like is required to buy him. This is the case until they enter the last 6 months of their contract.

The posturing is either trying to keep the player from asking to leave or bargaining for the highest price possible. If a club genuinely thought they could go to court to force a club to sell them a player for a lower price, the likes of Real Madrid would have done this years ago.

I'd love to extrapolate this out to other walks of life. I could knock on someone's door and offer them market value for their house, then take them to court to force them to sell it to me! Doesn't matter if it wasn't on sale, I offered 'fair value' and they're obliged to accept.

Like most, you fail to realize that a player's contract is not a contract to sell a house, or to supply a service and those rules do not apply because it is a contract of employment and therefore totally different. You also mis-represented what I said, you forgot the crucial part of "if the player wants to go".

 

[Londonlisa2001]

Clubs don’t buy and sell contracts of employment. They buy and sell registrations. Bosman ruled that those registrations only hold for as long as a player ALSO has a contract of employment (otherwise it was restraint of trade).

If a player has, for example, a three year contract and decides after one year they want to go elsewhere, there is nothing they can do about it if the club does not agree to sell the registration that allows them to play elsewhere. They could refuse to play but then would be in breach. It’s effectively (note ‘effectively’) a fixed term contract with the ‘notice period’ lasting the entire original length of contract if you want to think of it in those terms.

The player themselves is not bought and sold (they are not chattels) it is the registration that is.

Anyway, in this case, not sure why we wouldn't sell to Southampton if an offer meets our valuation. The disagreement around compensation for Martin is a legal one - it depends on what the contract with Martin says (note that managers DO have standard contracts of employment and compensation is simply a pre agreed sum for breach).

If the contract says ‘compensation for leaving to manage a club that will be playing in the championship on the date the appointment becomes effective is x and to manage a club that will be playing in the premier league on the date the appointment becomes effective is y’ then Southampton have a solid case as he was leaving to manage them in the championship.

If the contract states ‘compensation for leaving to manage a club that is in the championship when contact is first made is x and leaving to manage a club that is in the premier league when contact is first made is y’ then we have a solid case.

I suspect that it isn’t clear and simply states ‘leaving to manage a championship club is x and a premier league club is y’ which is why there is an argument. But who is right and wrong isn’t clear - it’s a badly worded clause. Anyone that thinks differently should imagine what they’d think if he’d gone to, say Burnley and contact was first made just before the last game of the season. Would we be saying ‘it’s a championship club at this point so they should only pay us the championship amount’, or would they be saying ‘it’s to manage them in the premier league and they should pay the premier league amount’.
I’ll bet it’s the latter.

I hope by the way that we don’t cash in on Cabango or Wood. I’d far rather cash in on Piroe and Grimes as I think they are more easily replaced.

 

[JackSomething]

Like most, you fail to realize that a player's contract is not a contract to sell a house, or to supply a service and those rules do not apply because it is a contract of employment and therefore totally different. You also mis-represented what I said, you forgot the crucial part of "if the player wants to go".

Accepted, bad analogy on my part. Lisa said it better than I ever could why you're incorrect though.

For an actual example, Harry Kane is still at Spurs despite making it clear he wanted to be sold at least once and with a club (Man City) who certainly would have made a 'fair value' offer. Spurs didn't want to sell him, he stayed. I doubt anyone in Kane's camp or at Man City contemplated taking Spurs to court thinking they could force a sale.

 

[RodgerTheDodger]

Accepted, bad analogy on my part. Lisa said it better than I ever could why you're incorrect though.

For an actual example, Harry Kane is still at Spurs despite making it clear he wanted to be sold at least once and with a club (Man City) who certainly would have made a 'fair value' offer. Spurs didn't want to sell him, he stayed. I doubt anyone in Kane's camp or at Man City contemplated taking Spurs to court thinking they could force a sale.

Lisa efficiently expressed the EUFA view of how football contracts work. The problem is that player is dangerously close to being a chattel for the period of the contract, which in some cases is now 5 years. She is wrong in saying clubs merely buy registrations. A contract with 6 months left to run is worth far less than one with two years - so they are buying the contract.
It is in the same situation as pre Bosman. No one wants to challenge it, the clubs would find the sale value of the contacts they hold slashed, players would no longer get a juicy percentage of transfer fees, most importantly their Agents would vehemently oppose their guys taking Court action for the same reason. I was told (back in the noughties) that at least two members of the ECJ were keen to get it before the Court because as they saw the attitude, "selling a player" and the player being a financial asset of the club, as offensive (which I basically agree with).
Personally, I think the current situation is unhealthy for football as huge transfer fees mainly serve to make a closed shop for rich clubs. The rub is that valuing a player by the value of his contract would mean the value to the selling club, not the buying club. So an extreme would be that a guy going to a PL club would bring the same money as him going to L1. I suspect the Court would say that's how it works, but EUFA would step in and impose a system of compensation between the clubs which reflect where the player had moved to, similar to what it did for young players post Bosman.
OTOH, it would be Court decision. You never know exactly what principle a Court will set out before it does and Courts never want to be destructive. There are always surprises - they're not stupid.

 

[Londonlisa2001]

Lisa efficiently expressed the EUFA view of how football contracts work. The problem is that player is dangerously close to being a chattel for the period of the contract, which in some cases is now 5 years. She is wrong in saying clubs merely buy registrations. A contract with 6 months left to run is worth far less than one with two years - so they are buying the contract.
It is in the same situation as pre Bosman. No one wants to challenge it, the clubs would find the sale value of the contacts they hold slashed, players would no longer get a juicy percentage of transfer fees, most importantly their Agents would vehemently oppose their guys taking Court action for the same reason. I was told (back in the noughties) that at least two members of the ECJ were keen to get it before the Court because as they saw the attitude, "selling a player" and the player being a financial asset of the club, as offensive (which I basically agree with).
Personally, I think the current situation is unhealthy for football as huge transfer fees mainly serve to make a closed shop for rich clubs. The rub is that valuing a player by the value of his contract would mean the value to the selling club, not the buying club. So an extreme would be that a guy going to a PL club would bring the same money as him going to L1. I suspect the Court would say that's how it works, but EUFA would step in and impose a system of compensation between the clubs which reflect where the player had moved to, similar to what it did for young players post Bosman.
OTOH, it would be Court decision. You never know exactly what principle a Court will set out before it does and Courts never want to be destructive. There are always surprises - they're not stupid.

“ She is wrong in saying clubs merely buy registrations. A contract with 6 months left to run is worth far less than one with two years - so they are buying the contract.”

Nope. The reason it’s worth less is because as I said in my post, Bosman ruling said that the registration can only hold for as long as the player ALSO has a contract of employment. So a player with 6 months left on their contract has only 6 months to wait before the registration becomes worthless. That’s why they transfer for less money.

 

[RodgerTheDodger]

“ She is wrong in saying clubs merely buy registrations. A contract with 6 months left to run is worth far less than one with two years - so they are buying the contract.”

Nope. The reason it’s worth less is because as I said in my post, Bosman ruling said that the registration can only hold for as long as the player ALSO has a contract of employment. So a player with 6 months left on their contract has only 6 months to wait before the registration becomes worthless. That’s why they transfer for less money.

So you agree that the remaining duration of the contract is a vital element in the valuation of the 'sale of the Registration'? And you would have to admit that to buy the Registration the purchaser also has to buy out the contract, and it is the buying out of the player's contract with the club that permits the re-registration to go ahead. You are nit-picking at the legal distinctions, and deliberately missing the point.

 

[Londonlisa2001]

So you agree that the remaining duration of the contract is a vital element in the valuation of the 'sale of the Registration'? And you would have to admit that to buy the Registration the purchaser also has to buy out the contract, and it is the buying out of the player's contract with the club that permits the re-registration to go ahead. You are nit-picking at the legal distinctions, and deliberately missing the point.

Yes, it is an important element due to the Bosman ruling - I said that in my original post to you. I was explaining why you were mistaken that a player’s employment contract is changing hands and that it’s the registration being bought and sold which is why it holds in law. Believe me,don’t believe me. It’s not missing the point, it’s the whole point.