The ramblings of a madman (Blatter, not me.)

Sepp Blatter has described footballers on long-term contracts as “like modern slavery”. I’ll let you read that back. Players like C-Ron, earning Millions of pounds a year, are being compared to serfs. What an absolute joke. I never really wanted to jump on the anti-Blatter bandwagon (although i very very against 6+5) but this absolutely crazy. Michel Platini’s UEFA has come back and contradicted him thankfuly.

Aside from the obvious offensiveness considering the world is struggling with bone fide slavery still, in this day and age, and the small fact that comparing a footballer who is on that kind of money in the first place to it is absolute madness, putting that aside – the whole bloody situation is Blatters fault anyway.

If so many rules that put the power in the hands of the player, rather than the club, were not in place, then they wouldn’t have to tie them to long contracts. Specifically, this whole nasty Webster Clause buisness has done absolutely nothing but scare clubs into giving players insanely long, well paying contracts, that frankly are asking for trouble. Ask Leeds United.

The Bosman Ruling also has alot to do with it as well. Clubs don’t want to loose thier players on a free (as Chelsea are currently facing with Frank Lampard) so of course they aren’t gonna wanna loose an international footballer for free, so they have to tie him to a big contract.

Don’t get me wrong, as a vague socialist, I’m all for the worker having the power over where he plays to a certain extent, but when a player is earning this kind of crazy money, it doesn’t matter so much that he doesn’t play at the weekend right? And surely most players agree to the contracts? So for example Wayne Bridge, clearly he’s happy with being paid 50k a week to warm the Chelsea bench.

Uefa for thier part have shouted down Blatter (it seems to be Michel Platini’s job these days), they had this to say

”It seems that both clubs and players are trying to negotiate an exit before the player is free [at the end of his contract]. It is a consequence of the Bosman ruling – there is nothing we can do about that. It is obvious that today players have a lot more power than they did 20 years ago, undoubtedly, and agents have a lot more power than they did 20 years ago”

Well, quite. Blatter also said that if Ronaldo wants to leave Man United, United should just let him, and United made the point I was trying to make about contracts:

All our players – like at other clubs – enter into their contracts after an open and free negotiation; most of whom do so after taking advice from a Fifa-registered agent. Many do so on a number of occasions and enjoy long and successful stays at Old Trafford

Anyway, where do you stand, Offsiders?

Category: Champions League, Other News from Europe