In other news, something of a coup for Lynn! http://www.pinkun.com/king-s-lynn/e...move_to_non_league_king_s_lynn_town_1_3238708
Interesting points. Why do you say amateurish at Norwich? I'm not sure what more could have been done. Perhaps we could have said something along the lines of "the Cheapskates have not come close to our valuation for an integral player in our squad, having put in a pitiful bid for a player who participated in 30+ Premier League games last season and we feel that this is entirely disrespectful of both Norwich as a fellow Premier League club and Wes Hoolahan as a contracted, professional, football player". But beyond that, I'm not sure what more we could have done. The key thing we do now is stick to our guns and don't sell. Put in an official complaint to the FA for tapping up and give Villa a slap on the wrists (which admittedly is hardly much so not really a problem). I wouldn't say carry on as if nothing has happened - make Hoolahan train with the reserves to show that the biggest loser in this situation is him. We can sell him in the Summer, but in the meantime that's the only way we can really cut our losses here. I agree with your assessment of Hoolahan's position in our squad though. But I'd much rather we lost him as a player by sticking him in our reserves, rather than the double-whammy of Villa getting him. I think the club can afford it.
Every player has his price. If Wes wants to leave and Villa want him then as long as they pay a sensible amount for him I don't see a problem which team he goes to. Clearly Wes will only be a bit part player under CH and realistically he would rather be a bit part player under Lambert. If we can replace him in the squad with someone more likely to get match time then that is what we have to do regardless of how popular Wes is with many supporters. The supporters opinion is not hugely relevant, Hughton's is and he is going nowhere this tranfer window - and to be fair probably all season.
I don't think any club should give in to 'tapping up' by other clubs, and this has certainly lowered my opinion of Lambert (and Holt as well). Neither do I think that the club should condone Wes's actions as it could encourage other players to try the same thing in the future.
RER - don't disagree with you but this is the way the modern game is. However the way I see it is that CH does not really rate/trust Wes and does not regard him as a starter in the first XI. If he sees selling Wes at a sensible price and recruiting someone more likely to feature in the starting XI then I don't have an issue with it. Regardless of Villa allegedly tapping him up Wes clearly was and is not happy and so a move is probably best for all parties. yes it would stick in the craw were he to go to Villa but their money is worth the same as any other clubs.
On tapping up, I'm going to have to put my lawyer's hat on to tede you all out (and probably signal the death of this thread...) To cut a long story short, there are serious questions as to whether the whole structure of football player contracts is valid under EU law. The Bosman ruling made a big first step, but currently the players (rightfully) complain that they have substantially worse rights than any other "worker" in the EU. All other employees can submit their notice and walk out of the company they work in, but not footballers. For all other employees, if you have a fixed term contract with no notice period and you break the contract, you have to cover the cost of the remaining part of the contract, but there are no penalties. Not footballers. The FA refuses registration with another club, demands payments to the previous club, etc. (which, off the top of my head, could be classed as void as a penalty under English law, I'm not sure). The reason it has not been challenged I think is because the whole of football from the top down is very much an old boys' club and if you challenge the system in any way you will be ostracised. They very much see themselves as above the law. I'm no expert (as you can probably tell...) so this is all pretty hazy, but basically what it means is that I think, pretty soon (perhaps within the next ten years) players will be able to challenge the current transfer and registration systems. This will mean that: (1) transfer fees will shoot down (they will be broken contract fees - equivalent to the wage the player is on) (2) wages will shoot up (!) (3) and, hopefully, this will reduce cost to supporters I may well be wrong, FIFA are extremely powerful and there may be enough interest in keeping the status quo, or at least amending the rules to incorporate some of the player demands, but essentially keeping the status quo. But EU law moves faster than people think and, while I am well aware that there are lots of people, probably many on this board, who are strongly opposed to British membership of the EU and dislike EU delegated law (as is their right to hold this opinion and on many things I agree with them), the bottom line is that EU law is very fair and looking out for the employee. I suppose the real question is, and has been in a lot of other contexts recently, are footballers employees or assets (in the balance sheet sense)? Football clubs, for obvious reasons, want them to be assets. It's a tricky call. Watch this space. I think sweeping changes are in order and we need to keep our place in the Prem to be best place to take advantage.
(In contradiction of my post above...) tell them to shove it. Double that and we'll consider. What is it with so many clubs thinking they can get away with offering pittance for our players? Especially a club like Swansea who should have more class.
According to this, there is: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/anthony-pilkington/profil/spieler_67322.html We have rarely had a contract without this extra option, so I suspect this is true. I would have thought the real debate internally is whether to accept that Pilkington is not going to be consistently fit and whether he is worth offering a substantially increased contract. I would argue he is, because he is pretty unique in our squad. But then I haven't seen his medical report...
i think it would be a mistake to sell pilkington, with his injuries taken into account he's still one of our best attacking players.
Rob, I read about the contractual issue before, and it's hard to see how the football clubs have a case against it. It's certainly going to be interesting to follow! It seems fair that each player should be available for the value of the rest of their contract, so if the most any of our players are on is £40k p/w, on a 4 year contract, the most we could ever make is £8.3m. At the top end, that would mean if you've just given Suarez a £200k p/w, 4 year contract, he'd still be available for £32m, which is much less than Liverpool would want. I disagree with you that it would reduce the cost to supporters though. Rich owners are still going to want to splash the cash, and to hold onto their best players, so you'd expect player wages to increase substantially at the top end to make them harder to move on. That means though that all the money is going to the players, effectively taking it out of football. That means that an increased amount of turnover is going to be spent on player wages, so things like ground improvements are going to get harder to finance. As a small club, you'll no longer be able to sell your wonderkid to the big boys and use the several million you get to finance a new stand, they might be lucky to get £100k. It'll all be passed on to the supporters instead. How to circumvent it? Not sure. I was wondering if it could be achieved with central FIFA contracts, but I can't figure out how it'd work.
Where did you go to school fella? 200k a week over four year is upwards of £40 million (£41.6m in fact unless my mental arithmetic has let me down) which is roughly the release clause they had for him.
I've quadrupled rather than quintupled my figures when I extrapolated from the £40k figures. Oops. That's still setting the bar for top-end transfers lower than it is now though. Is Messi meant to be on something like £300k p/w? He'd be available for £60m then. I think it'll have a greater effect at the lower end of the wage scale than the high end though.
All good points (the reducing costs for supporters is more a wish than anything - as you say, no evidence, but I think there's good argument for it if transfer fees come down). I agree that for many players the breach of contract price doesn't vary all that much from the touted amount. The big difference, though, is when contracts run down. RvP would have gone to Man U for somewhere between £5m and £10m (I don't know his wage). So, you are correct. Ultimately it pushes up wages for players (which is exactly what they want, obviously). The only thing it would do is even the playing field as among the clubs with bottomless pockets - i.e. Chelsea could no longer outbid Arsenal (I'm not saying they ever have, but just as an example) because we would know exactly how much each player is worth. I suspect that central contracts could well be a part of finding the resolution for FIFA to keep themselves within the rules. Basically, what I imagine would happen is that all players who turn professional would have to pay a contractual fee to FIFA and, in return, be able to play in FIFA managed football leagues, but agree to FIFA managed football rules in terms of transferring clubs. I think that, as just one example round it, would abide by EU law without actually changing anything (other than making FIFA wealthier and more powerful...)
Oh and of course jokes like shared ownership and Neymar's parents getting £34m for his Barcelona move will completely disappear.
