We can go back and forth on West Ham, Premier League, Tevez and Manchester United all day, but instead of rehashing things I want to ask the well-informed Soccerlens readers some key questions.
Before that happens though, a couple of observations:
- The Premier League will move to protect the validity of their earlier rulings before considering player welfare, club welfare or civil laws. In that scenario, the Premier League will not – can not – accept that Manchester United are dealing directly with Kia and Tevez.
- West Ham are in a double bind. If they are reneging on their agreement with Kia and MSI they open themselves to prosecution and the excuse that “the former owners did this” is not going to float – it’s a business, and the business is liable.
If West Ham let go and allow Tevez to join Manchester United without taking a transfer fee (they are entitled a fee from MSI, as the initial contracts state), they have then accepted that they did not own his economic registration and that will get the Premier League to bust their asses back to the Championship (if they won’t they will open a big can of worms and this time Sheffield United will actually have a case).
- The only difference right now between the Mascherano transfer to Liverpool and the proposed Tevez move to Manchester United is the 27 April Premier League hearing where West Ham were fined for lying to the PL and for violating rule U18. If that’s it, this seems to be a case of the Premier League covering its ass.
Ok, on to the questions:
#1: Why is it so bad for third-parties (read corporations) to own football players?
#2: Can you please point out that section of the Premier League rules where it explicitly or implicitly states that non-club player ownership is ‘not acceptable’?
#3: If West Ham have ‘reneged’ on their agreement with MSI and assumed economic rights for Tevez, doesn’t that hold them liable to a very big lawsuit? Couldn’t MSI sue West Ham to the tune of 20-30m pounds?
Or, put another way, if someone borrowed your car and later, to save his ass from his company boss, claimed (with legal documentation) that the car was his, wouldn’t he be opening himself up for a ass-whopping legal case?
#4: Can West Ham simply cancel Tevez’s registration and and make him a ‘free’ agent, allowing him to join Manchester United?
#5: What exactly was the Mascherano deal between Liverpool, West Ham and the Premier League? Shouldn’t that be re-examined as well?
Looking forward to your answers.
Well, who can argue now that the Tevez-to-United transfer is not the MOST talked about transfer of the season?
This is even more sensational than the Beckham-to-USA transfer (although for different reasons of course)
Gautam – Sorry but can you explain how the EPL rules don’t allow him to play against Man United?
‘Tim Howard – No particular clause was inserted in his contract with Everton. It was based on a “verbal†agreement between the 2 clubs’ You obviously don’t understand contract law very well as ‘verbal’ agreement can be legally binding thus making it third party involvement.
I have no particular beef with Man Utd but what really gets me about the whole affair is my club WHU are being painted as cheats, liars etc, yet in principle the same thing occurs with almost every other club. The big clubs are painted whiter than white as they generate the most money, news etc, imagine your a jouralist and you upset Sir Alex, suddenly your paper has limited access to interviews etc, so issues involving the bigger sides tend to get looked over the ‘Ashley Cole affair’ being a prime example.
I also thought ‘tapping up’ was illegal yet it goes on all the time, take Rick Parry who let it be know through the media that Liverpool were interested in Yossi B, his comments turned the player who was about to sign a new 5 year contract and then offers just £1m for a player worth at least £6m. Move on a few weeks, WHU have a player who won’t sign a new deal and wants to move and Liverpool, WHU know they have to sell as he’d be a free agent in the summer so slowly Liverpool offer a little more each time and finally get their man for roughly £4m.
I wonder if there would be as much of a problem if Tevez had a contract that said that he not MSI could negotiate with any team he wanted that he could opt out at any point in return for signing for a lesser fee with Westham. I think that in many ways what they are trying to avoid is player freedom not third party influence. How can the player be a third party. Since MSI are Tevez’s agents they negotiate on his behalf and to his benefit. The only way you can say they were not working to his benefit was if he were being sold to a worse team. Therefore, when they speak of a third party they really speak of Tevez himself. They say that a player has no rights under contract that only teams can make decisions on players.
The real issue is player power vs team power. I find it ridiculous that players cannot decide to join another team without having so many barriers placed in front of them. That players cannot decide to join another team without being called a traitor yet teams can dump a player for whatever reason even arbitrary reasons. It is ridiculous that being able to decide which club you wish to play for and when you want to end your contract is considered third party influence.
Think about it if you wish to leave your company for another but the law says that your contract can only be terminated by your contractor and not you. That only your company can negotiate with another to allow you to move. That if they decide that they want you to leave they can sell your contract to whom ever they wish with little or no input from you. That for me is slavery not when a person has an agent who negotiates on his behalf and in return for that gets the transfer fee rather than a percentage of the players salary for life in cases as much as fifty percent for foreign nationals.
Another thought. Tevez is just an advanced case of free agency. Rather than being a transfer he signs for a signing on fee but retains his economic rights under certain conditions. Westham signed him under conditions that would have allowed him to retain his rights.