Wenger to sue Hleb?
By: Rob | May 10th, 2008
I’ll let you re-read that title. It seems that Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has finally snapped. Annoyed at the potential exodus at the Emirates, starting with Matthieu Flamini and heavily rumoured to include Hleb, Fabregas, Gallas, Lehman, Giberto Silva and Theo Wallcott, the frenchman has decided he’d rather sue Hleb than let him just leave.
Inter have been heavily linked with the Belarus winger over the last week or so - to the point where a couple of days ago, Hleb’s agent proclaimed that he would certainly leave Arsenal in the summer. There has been talk of the midfielder invoking Article 17 - the ‘Webster’ Clause, which seems to be what has infuriated Wenger.
“It is not as simple as it looks, this Webster clause, you can’t just come in next day and buy out, there is no rule that says that. And you should not forget what clubs can do. You have to first go to a FIFA tribunal and if you don’t agree with FIFA, you have to go to ACAS. It takes a lot of months. You can be banned for the whole period if it’s not done in a proper way”
It looks as if Wenger is willing to go the whole ten yards on this. But the big question is..well..why? If Hleb is determined enough to leave that he’s prepared to go to court over it, then even if Wenger won and Hleb had to stay with the Gunners, well he’s not going to be happy/playing well/staying long is he? He’d just let his contract wind down and leave the club that way anyway, and you probably wouldn’t get much service out of a player that doesn’t want to be at the club. But you would have to pay him. This is why clubs are utterly powerless now.
In regards to Flamini’s departure, Wenger was apparently more upset at the player’s attitude, and even snuck in a dig at Milan’s slightly scandal-ridden recent past.
“I know the rules in this job, the guy is free, he can go to somebody who pays him more - he said he wanted to stay. If you say, ‘no I want to go somewhere’ that is OK. But you cannot say, ‘I want to stay, but I go. This club here has a history of being built by people of values. I’m not sure that in the history of Milan you’ll find the same values, even if you dig well”
So has this what modern football has come to?
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Tags: Arsenal, Champions League, Milan, INter Milan, Hleb, Flamini, Arsene Wenger, Sue, Court, Webster Clause, Transfer Speculation, Illegal Approach, Other News from Europe, Transfer News, Tag IndexSubscribe
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I think the point that Wenger is getting at is that Inter are basically trying to avoid having to pay an extra £15m by invoking the Webster clause. As far as breaching contracts goes, he is perfectly entitled to sue Hleb for compensation (as is my understanding of things). He also has a point because Article 17 says that:
In all cases, the party in breach shall pay compensation. Subject to the provisions of Art. 20 and annex 4 in relation to Training Compensation, and unless otherwise provided for in the contract, compensation for breach shall be calculated with due consideration for the law of the country concerned, the specific city of sport, and any other objective criteria. These criteria shall include, in particular, the remuneration and other benefits due to the player under the existing contract and/or the new contract, the time remaining on the existing contract up to a maximum of five years, the fees and expenses paid or incurred by the Former Club (amortised over the term of the contract) and whether the contractual breach falls within a Protected Period.
So, it’s not a case of “break your contract — you get this amount in compensation”: Arsenal will take Hleb and Inter to court in order to argue for what amount of compensation that they think is fair, which MAY end up being around what Inter would have had to have paid Arsenal normally for a player of Hleb’s calibre anyway.
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