Here's the rule. Part (A) states it clearly. On or after 1st April of the year in which an agreement or any renewal of it expires, a Player under written contract may enter into a new agreement with and again be registered for the Club. (ii) Until the existing agreement or any renewal of it has terminated: (A) a Player may not enter into any agreement with any other Club in membership with The Association, or an Affiliated Association, or of any other national football association; and (B) the Player may not be approached by any other Club, or Club Official of any other Club, or any person with a view to inducing the Player to leave the Club for which the Player is registered, except with the written permission of that Club. (iii) If, by the time specified for such notice to be served, the Player has not received notice exercising an option or offering a further re-engagement under paragraph C1(j) of this Rule, the Player is free to make such enquiries or approaches as thought fit to secure employment when the agreement or renewal of it terminates.
Clayton Donaldson. York to Hibs Steve McManaman. Liverpool to Real. Excuse the dated nature of McManaman, but there isn't exactly much demand for English based players going abroad on free transfers in the first place, we usually try to sell them abroad the summer before. I've used Donaldson by the way because York were fuming about losing out on compo due to it being an international move as they'd turned down £200k from P'boro. There's no way they'd have sanctioned him talking to them, if they could have blocked it they would have.
Shola is a very good player and would improve most sides in the bottom half but he's not what you're after. You need a young Kevin Phillips.
They're the current FL rules, as York were non league at the time I guess that discounts the Donaldson transfer. I was a bit young to be understanding or bothered about these things for McManaman, but I guess the rules must have been changed to their current form since that, or Real Madrid and McManaman broke them; was there a compensation fee or fine involved? I posted the current rule above, which isn't really open to interpretation, it's clear.
Watched him a lot over the last 10 years and I rate him. However, I don't think he's for us. He has only had a bit part role for Newcastle in recent years, mainly being used as an impact sub. He is strong and the classical 'handful' but he's not a creative goal scorer and he's ponderous. If we signed him, he'd end up on the bench, coming on for the last 15 minutes when we were trying to grab a draw. We need to look elsewhere.
As we're a PL club would York being non-league discounting them not also mean us not being FL discounted our players? It doesn't explain why the likes of P'boro weren't allowed to discuss a precontract at the time either. The problem you have with the principal of "find a transfer to disprove the rule" is that there's so few free transfers from English based clubs to foreign ones in the first place. It's so rare for a player here to be picked up on a precontract abroad it's almost impossible. Those that are it's hard to say whether or not their existing club had given permission as it tends to be the tripe in the squad. The ones that are good enough to play regularly and be wanted by their clubs tend to wait until after the contract has even ended, so not even agreeing the deal in the last month. Having said that, looking through all 20 current PL sides transfers out in the last 3 years: Matthews from Cardiff to Celtic is one. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/celtic/9407563.stm Pogba from Man U to Juve is another. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...a-leaves-Manchester-United-join-Juventus.html NB: The article mentions compensation, but that is due to the player's age and not any agreement made due to bypassing a rule. Part A of the rule above only prevents them having 2 contracts at a time, it doesn't prevent a precontract being agreed which leads to a contract at the end of the existing one. Part B I would say does more to stop the precontracts, but I'm sure there's a loophole in it I just can't quite put my finger on it. I'm in the area where when the club is foreign and hasn't signed up to the FL rules saying it's against the rules for a player to be approached by them is like saying it's against the rules of marriage for another guy to hit on your wife. It's totally unenforceable, and if your marriage contract was only for a certain length of time you couldn't stop another guy telling her what he'd give her once she was free.
The rule relates to C1(j) which is this: "Within 7 days of the first Saturday in May, or the date of the last competitive Match of the Club’s first team, whichever is the later, the Club must give notice in writing to the Player indicating that either the Club offers a re-engagement or, if appropriate, exercises any option contained in the agreement. (iv) If the notice offers re-engagement it must specify the period which the Club is prepared to agree and the terms and conditions to apply, which must be the same or not less favourable overall than those which applied during the initial period of employment – or the option period (if applicable). (v) The Player must notify in writing the Club holding the registration within 28 days of receipt of the said notice whether or not the offer of re- engagement is accepted. (vi) If the offer is rejected the Player is immediately free to negotiate with another Club. (vii) If the Player does not reply in writing to the offer of re-engagement then at the expiry of a period of 28 days, the Player is free to negotiate with another Club. (viii) In either of the instances as set out in Rules C1(j)(vi) and (vii) above, the Club holding the Player’s registration has the right to receive compensation. The Player’s registration for the new Club will not be accepted until such time as the Club has confirmed in writing to The Association that it will negotiate a compensation fee with the former Club failing which it will abide by any decision taken by an appeal committee comprising those persons pursuant to Rule C1(j)(xii) (a “League Appeals Committee”." Maybe the fact that in both cases the player had already rejected a contract offer opened their availability? As regards part A of the other rule, somewhere amongst the pages of unordered crap in the rule book, I'm 99.9% sure I remember reading that a pre contract is still classed as a contractual agreement.
Only if you think that Aluko is what we need. Personally he is to often injured and a liability to give him any contract that is not appearance based. I assume he rejected the contract offer because that is what we offered him.
I think we can do a lot better than Ameobi whose best years are behind him and even they were not replete with goals. I would hope if we are still in mid-table in January, as we should be, and WBA continue to fade, Long would still be very interested in joining us and hooking up with the Irish lads. Sagbo needs someone with speed who can get open to play alongside him, and work off his strength in holding up the ball. Aluko would be great if healthy but that's a huge if it seems. We need to look elsewhere.
Didn't we do it with Steve McPhee? Hmmm, not for me. Unfortunately for the lad he's going to be like this for the rest of his career - 3 months fit, 3 months injured and we're not a club who can carry that. He's proven in the past to be a mercenary, we've offered him a cracking deal by all accounts and we shouldn't be held to ransom.
No, he was out in Portugal, although we did have to do a compo payment to Port Vale as it was within a certain time of him leaving them on a Bosman. We're looking specifically at players based in the English setup, and looking for them joining a foreign based club. That's why it's difficult to find examples, players hardly ever leave England when they're out of contract without waiting as long as possible to complete the deal. (There were only about 5 or 6 other transfers that would have been on a precontract rather than them leaving their old club and then signing a few days/weeks later)
The rules I quoted above were actually from the FA current rulebook I realised. Just looked through the current Football League rules, and they are basically the same written slightly different, but it does say this: "Note In the event of the Player wishing to sign for a Club not in membership of The Football League or The Premier League, i.e. a non-League Club, The Football Association Rules shall apply." So in the event of a player moving overseas, the rules I quoted are the ones in force.
Premier League players who are out of contract next summer, can negotiate with foreign clubs & sign a pre-contract agreement from January. That's all there is to it.
That's what I meant. Werent we able to offer him a contract before the summer deadline cos he was abroad? Anyway, I cant be arsed with all this - it's doing my 'ead in.
