England vs Europe - Tapping Up and the Press
We’ve talked a lot about Real Madrid’s transfer strategy with regards to Ronaldo and recently of the Tottenham-Manchester United-Liverpool story where the Tottenham chairman has reported United to the Premier League for ‘tapping up’ Berbatov.
For the rest of Europe, such comments don’t arouse as much self-righteous indignation as they do in England. In fact, Europe as a whole (apart from England) accepts such comments as part of the ‘game’.
Here are some quotes by chairmen/vice presidents of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and AC Milan over the last 2 months or so:
Quotes
Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, while talking to reporters about Bayern’s summer transfer activity:
“We’re not planning anything else for this summer. We contemplated bringing Alexander Hleb to Munich, but only if another player had chosen to leave us. That didn’t happen, so the chapter marked Hleb is closed.
I’m also assuming Mario Gomez won’t become available. We do know he has a get-out clause in his contract which may allow us to sign him in the future.”
Specifically, I’m referring to the comment about Gomez, currently signed up at Stuttgart, Bayern’s Bundesliga title rivals.
[Sky, 23 July]
Real Madrid chairman Ramon Calderon, on three separate occasions when talking to the press:
“If a club doesn’t want to sell a player, why would we insist that they do sell him?”
[SoccerNet, 29 May]
and…
“I prefer not to talk much about him because he is a United player. We are in this situation as passive spectators.”
[Republik of Mancunia, 27 June]
and finally…
“Manchester shouldn’t be angry and should open up their stance. We can’t be blamed if nearly every player wants to come to Real Madrid. If I was Manchester United I’d be happy and proud to be able to negotiate such a transfer for one of my players. Everything would be a lot easier if United realised that they could pull off the transfer of the century.
It all depends on Ronaldo. If Ronaldo wants to leave Manchester, he’ll leave. If he wants to stay, he’ll stay. I don’t think you can keep anyone in a place where they don’t want to be, not even in a family. But for a formal negotiation to start, Manchester United will have to open their doors to us.”
[Guardian, 8 July]
Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani:
“The names are those that have been reported by the press.
That is Eto’o, Drogba, Adebayor, Gomez and Berbatov. Any of them would be good.”
[Sky Sports, 9th June]
If an English club manager made similar statements to the press, he would be cut up and fed to the dogs by the hypocritical media and the self-righteous fans. On the other hand, this sort of behavior is more common in continental Europe and from what I’ve seen (I could be wrong), it’s accepted there as a part of football (as opposed to the ‘ethical’ and ‘legal’ issues in England).
There’s a lot of ‘tapping up’ going on as well, but again it’s a murky area where there are unenforced regulations about clubs being required to inform other clubs before starting negotiations with their players. Overall though, all of this - the posing in the press, the mind games, the ’simulation’, the tapping up - seems to be more acceptable in continental Europe than it is in England.
I’m not accusing Europe of lacking morals - far from it. Instead, I think England as a culture needs to loosen up and get off their moral high horses.
What do you guys think?
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Discussion - 15 Responses
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It’s against the rules. Just because they do it on the continent doesn’t make it right or ok. Those managers and chairmen etc should get shafted for it too
Its against the rules in england because it could lead to corruption! agents etc
it would be detrimental to the EPL to have a sub culture which is allowed to operate
in matters to do with the transfer of big money ,bungs,sweeteners etc
a clear giudeline is all that is required and adhered to …..the media can say what they want
but the statements from clubs,players ,managers should reflect some integrity
regardless of editorial bias……….as we now see spurs and man u are now publicy at odds…..as a spurs fan i think Man u now have something to answer for,,,,,, no smoke without fire!….as we made it clear behind the scenes and media that berbatov is not for sale……so should respect that THFC indication officially….
They are called PL rules, last time i checked inter, milan and real dont apply!!
Regulating press statements is practically impossible. Are you going to fine anyone that so much as mentions a player from another club? And even if you do, they’ll find the necessary weasel words to say what they mean without actually saying it (if you see what I mean).
The rules that are in place are related to any kind of legal agreements between a club and a player already under contract to another club.
Thing is, if I work for a company a a permanent employee under contract and a recruitment ‘headhunter’ calls me up about a possible position elsewhere, is that wrong? Say I’m unhappy about working there and I look through job ads, or engage an agency to look for me, am I doing wrong? Why is it wrong for football players? Why should they be treated differently?
That’s true, they’re EPL rules, and I think they are a really good thing. Such comments are made with the intention to destabilisethe player and his relationship with his club (teammates, board, coaches, etc), there will be doubt between one and another, and finaly the player will want to leave, even though, before the comments, he probably didn’t want to and was very happy were he was. The player, in many of this situations, becomes a pariah at his own team, even fans who chanted his name meere weeks ago would be shooting curses at his name when mentioned and they’d lock the jersey with his name they bought that very season in the darkest place of the closet. A guy like Blatter, who boasts about his love for the players, and his will to protect them (YEAH, RIGHT) should know that most of the times the ones that suffer from this are the players discussed, and such comments should be, maybe not stoped, because you can’t actually stop them from making such comments, but at least put some limit to them, stablish some rules, or give them a simple phone call and thell them to cut it.
@ Gonzalo. If you work with a company that has rules specifically stating you can’t have contact with another company while under contract than the answer to your question is NO, YOU CANNOT. All footballers (over the age of 18) playing professionally have contracts. The rules that these contracts abide by disallow players to have contact with other clubs regarding future employment. What you are advertising is that all players be allowed to do whatever they so choose. This will lead to anarchy and the death of the game. Stop being naive. Shrugging your shoulders and saying “But why not?” is grossly self-serving.
I don’t agree with the approach but it’s a possible solution to at least ending the debate on whether football allows players the same employment rights as other industries.
It’s NOT a rule in England. The problem is you can’t legislate against people making comments (as long as they are not slanderous etc)…it’s called freedom of speech. Tapping-up involves approaching or meeting with another team’s player or agent while he’s under contract. Peope can huff and puff all day about what other clubs say about their players but there will never be a rule, either in law, or within the various football bodies that can fence this.
AJB, you’re the one who’s naiive. Players have the power, not under FIFA/UEFA or any other governing body rules, but in law and it’s not going to change. Get used to it.
Same comment to Ahmed. Football is BIG business now and subject to the laws, and protection, that any other business is. In terms of precedence it will always be the law of the land first and the ‘laws’ of sporting bodies second. Blatter and Platini huff and puff, pretending to have powers to change things but it’s all hot air. They don’t have that power. It’s like the Frankenstein monster. FIFA with it’s ambitions to grow the world football market (with resounding success over the last 40 years it might be said) have created the monster as a bi-product and it’s long since out of their control.
I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
In the PL it should not be done because it is seen on badly and obviously because it is the rules. In the rest of the world they can do what they please. In my PERSONAL opinion the PL should probably not be so strict. They must definately have boundries wich if crossed sansioned but at the moment its like a “sin” to talk about just anting another player even if you havn’t even talked 2 him.
Also, I sent you an email but it bounced back. drop me a line through the contact form please, want to talk to you about something.
Ahmed,
Is this for me?
“Brian - really, you should know better.”
Ahmed, I’ve no idea what this means? Did you misread something in my posting (8)?
Oh, and you still need to email me.
To me Ramon Calderon talks like a drunk man…does not keep track of what he’s saying contradicts himself.
Its quite obvious that he’s just trying to frustrate United fans, board and Ronaldo as well. It’s every player’s dream to play for Real Madrid…but every player that goes there ….goes there to perish…and i dont think Ronaldo wants to perish just yet.