As I'm sure we are all aware following the failure to sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan, third party ownership is not permitted in the English Football leagues. I don't really understand why this is, given that a number of European leagues have no problems with this. After all, it should, in theory, allow smaller teams to bring in bigger players for a fraction of the price they'd normally have to pay. In turn, this should increase (in the short term anyway) the competitiveness of the league. It was only banned by the Premier League in 2008. But why? Yes, I know the stated reason being to not allow third parties from influencing a club's policies or the performance of a team, but surely a player on loan would effectively breach this, especially if the loan agreement precludes playing against the owning club...
it was banned due to tevez and mascherano and fraud. can't remeber why west ham were fined for it but sheff utd were the ones to "suffer" according to warnock in the end.
If a club doesn't own a player outright then there's scope for the other interested party/parties to push for say a move when maybe neither the player or club want it. I can't see a lot wrong with it other than lack of control by any one party. It is a bit like loaning players as St said.
Think Falcao is a prime example of how third party ownership can be crazy. Was that really his decision to sign for Monaco when the likes of Real, Chelsea, City, PSG, etc were all after him?
Tevez case - A common misconception throughout and after the Tevez case was that any third party player owner would have been in breach of the PL rules. This was not the case. It was the clause giving the owners of Tevez influence over West Ham which incurred the PL’s wrath (plus the non disclosure of the agreement itself). It was for this reason that West Ham was judged to have breached the old PL rule – Rule U18 and fined £5.5 million by the PL. At the time, there was therefore no express clause prohibiting Third Part Player Ownership; only the act of influencing a club’s policies or performance was forbidden. Tevez’s third party contract contained a clause giving exclusive power to the third party owners, MSI and Just Sports, to facilitate the transfer of the player. West Ham did not have a veto over this right and such a stipulation breached the above PL rule as it meant that outside parties had material influence over the decision making of West Ham.
Falcao is a good example but it's not that different to any player signing for a 'lesser' club when he's getting mega bucks out of the deal. Monaco the latest club to be nouveau riche! This is a good read on the Falcao transfer [if you've got a spare half hour!!] - http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-t...ory-behind-falcaos-blockbuster-move-to-moncao
It is simply to stop those 3rd party owners having influence over football matches. These sporting agencies can own players in two teams playing against each other, at the end of the day the agency is your boss and the club is a client of the agency. Not exactly a healthy system as big agencies dominate and that would mean that if you get to a point where nearly all pros signed up to agencies most of the players at the top clubs would be owned by 2 or 3 agencies. They would have massive influence over football.
Some good points. The potential for match fixing with agencies owning players in teams that play each other and also the question of agencies owning completely a person's 'economic rights' or his self determination as to where he plies his trade - is this morally right? And the risk of instability clubs if teams become more dependent on TPOs the clubs lose out on potential revenues from player sales and begin to lose stability.
West Ham broke an already existing rule - failing to disclose they had entered into agreements with a 3rd party. The new UEFA rule came about following the Tevez/Mascherano case.
I think it's a very messy arrangement but the benefit is for young players (typically from South America) who live in poverty - these agents/sports groups will pay for their development where no club will sign them. Then the same agents will try and get them the best deal possible.
WH were fined for non-disclosure and Warnock complained because he either expected or thought WH should have been docked points which would have seen them go down instead of his team.
Spot on. It works in S America for the reason you say but would that translate to other countries? I said earlier I'm not sure what's wrong with it but the more I read about it the less convinced I become. At the core of the whole thing is the agents' need to keep moving players to make money from transfer fees that in itself is destabilising and now I'm thinking about Suarez, although not third party owned, his agent will make more money the more moves he makes.
I think it's a good thing once the sports group is able to pluck a youngster from poverty and help them secure a deal with a club. From this point, the sports group should transfer 100% of the rights. The problem is when they sell a % of the players rights and this is when it gets complicated and messy.
The principle of companies signing up young talent & then farming them off to whoever they choose & then moving them on again when it suits their financially driven agenda is fundamentally wrong & I'm pleased that our FA have decided they won't accept the practice. It takes all control away from both the club they play for & maybe more importantly - the player himself. They're merely a commodity.
I'm sure they have someone else's interest at heart too. I'd also be inclined to say that that interest is of greater priority too.
Just a simple point, but before Bosman, the clubs treated players in exactly the same way. The player didn't have a choice, it was up to the club. I'm not sure, however, whether it is as simple as the player having no choice in the matter. I suspect that in actual fact, it is very much like the setup with any other footballer: Whereas a 'regular' footballer gets moved by their agent (who gets a cut of the fees from the player) and the selling club receives the transfer fee, a 'third-party owned' player gets moved by their agent (who gets a cut of the fee from the third-party owner) and the third-party owners get a fee for the services of a player for a set period as per the contract. To simply equate third-party agreements to a modern form of slavery is a massive oversimplification (IMO).
