|
The
End of the World?
by Paul Davidson
So
it looks like all those soothsayers, mystics and other assorted
fore-tellers of the future were just about correct. The end of the
world will come in, or before, the year 2000. Well, sort of. I am
not talking here about the total destruction of mankind in a nuclear
holocaust or the complete annihilation of the planet by colliding
with rogue meteorites.
What we are talking here is much more serious than any of that.
We are talking the end of the world of football as we know it. Football
as it used to be is well gone, we all know that. But at least we
still have some links to the way the game has always operated. The
main one being the transfer system. All that is going to change
however.
Thanks
to every footballers good friend Mr Bosman, players are now free
to go wherever they want at the end of their contracts and sign
for vast amounts of money, with nothing going to the players old
club. Now we are rapidly approaching stage two of what will be forever
known as "The Bosman ruling" and the chances are that many, many
players are not going to be so happy about it.
I
have long found it strange that, for example, if I want to get out
of my contract at work to join another company, all I have to do
is give a month's notice. If I was a footballer however, I cannot
do the same thing. I would be tied to that particular company until
the end of that contract. This apparently is not only technically
illegal in English law, but is definitely not kosher under the laws
of that great and fair body of men, the European Commission. The
only reason that nobody has ever done anything about it is down
to the simple fact that nobody has so far challenged the legality
of such a system.But
it will come. Trust me.
The
greed of the modern day professional footballer will see to that.
And then football as we know it will disappear. Contracts will no
longer be worth the paper they are written on (even more so than
now). Players will be able to change clubs every month if they so
wish and with the size of current signing bonuses they certainly
will wish. Loyalty to a club (remember that?) will disappear forever.
Obviously there will be a lot of both political and legal infighting
before this happens, but one day and that day is not so far off,
this will be the norm.
The
smaller clubs that are already fighting for their lives by offloading
players to keep the club going will no longer be able to do it.
Players will leave when they want and the clubs will get nothing.
Apparently that wonderful soap opera "The Anelka Saga" that kept
us all so amused (?) during the summer came very close to being
the test case for this. It still may, come to that, but if it doesn't
then its only a matter of time before someone else challenges the
system and according to many law experts will win hands down!
There
is of course another side to all this. And the word for the other
side of the coin is - redundancy. Employers with too many players
that it cannot get rid of because of the lengths of their contracts
will simply make them redundant. Easy as that. "Sorry mate but we've
got too many players, you're not needed anymore, here's a couple
of grand, thanks for coming, please shut the door behind you on
the way out."
What
does the player do? He takes the club to court of course. Every
club, those that are still solvent of course, will probably have
its own legal team just dealing with this side of the business.
And for the fans. For a start, all replica shirts will have to have
the players names fitted on velcro patches, for easy changing. Team
photos will be out of date by the time the are printed and "Player
of the Year" voting sheets will be four pages long. All this might
sound a bit far fetched, but it really is going to happen………and
soon! Trust me. Would I lie to you???????
|
