Player power has gone too far.
This week the footballing world has been rocked by the news that Wayne Rooney wants to leave Manchester United.
Part of me wants to laugh at Manchester United’s misfortune, but I also think it is sad how much power and disrespect a player can now have for a club and manager that have done so much for him.
Every summer we see drawn out transfer sagas, seemingly always at Arsenal with our captain of the time being targeted by one of Real Madrid or Barcelona. With Thierry Henry, I was extremely sad to see him leave, but understood why he had to as Arsenal were about to begin a period of youth development thanks to the new Emirates Stadium. When Patrick Vieira was let go, he was past his best. Cristiano Ronaldo was inevitably going to Real Madrid at some point, but had a brilliant last season which allowed Man Utd to receive £80m for him.
Even this summer just gone, Cesc Fabregas wanted to leave for Barcelona, but he kept his mouth shut until it was clear that he was staying at Arsenal. And since then he has given 100% effort and put in some brilliant displays for the team (when not injured!)
Rooney has taken a step too far. It is totally unreasonable and unsettling to the team to come out with 20 months left on his contract. He has created a media circus around himself which is disrespectful to Sir Alex Ferguson who has been supportive of him in the good times and the bad.
The 24-year-old striker claims that Manchester United fail to match his ambition for the future. The biggest club in the world, the most successful in England in the modern era, lack ambition. This looks like an attack on the ownership of the club by the Glazers, which has reduced the club’s spending power in the transfer market. To be fair, he has a point but does a player who has been in such poor form really have the right to come out and say the players who have been providing his goals, and this season been playing better than him, are not good enough for him?
It looks like Rooney has been hypnotised by the possibility of a mega bucks deal at Man City, where on current form, he’s even less likely to get into the team!
That or he’s fed up of the British media finding out about his encounters with prostitutes and wants to engineer a move to Spain or Italy.
Whatever his motives, the fact that he has come out with this is pretty sickening.
Ian Holloway, Blackpool manager, sums it up pretty well.
The rules regarding Bosman transfers, compensation for under 24s and not for players over that age, added to the fact that Rooney could buy out the remaining year of his contract next summer and move wherever he wants, are quite frankly, ridiculous. I’ve always been sceptical of football player contracts. At points I’ve thought it’d be a lot better if it was a free market like in the real world, that players could move whenever they wanted (with rules to stop them being registered to too many clubs during one season) as long as they gave notice. Similarly, clubs would be able to make players redundant at any time.
I realise this theory is quite naive and would probably be bad for the game. Players and their agents would probably be mercenaries more than even now and there would be less team stability.
So if professional football is going to be ran under a contract system, they need to be more strongly enforced. If a player signs a contract, they should have to fulfil it. If the player wants to leave, however long they have on their contract, the club they are moving to should pay a transfer fee.
Money is turning football into something it shouldn’t be.
No, let me rephrase that.
Greed is killing football.
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