YOUTH SCHEME FEATURES

Transfer Changes by Chris Heaton-Harris MEP

Monday 5th March could go down in history as the day that Football Transfer Fees died. That was the day on which months of technical meetings and prolonged negotiating between various Footballing Authorities and the European Commission ended some sort of agreement that leaves certain crucial questions still unanswered, SO what does the new system mean for English football?

Well we can look to some hectic team-changes in our new “Transfer Windows” and although transfer fees (or compensation as the terminology goes) will certainly decrease, to get the best players to stay at your club it means all clubs will have to try and find more money to pay their better players or face them walking out with little or no notice. The age of the £100,000 per week pay-packet is just around the corner for many Premiership players.

Alas, the player’s agents stand to gain the most from these new rules. It probably means some very testing times ahead for smaller clubs. The level of “Compensation” that a club can receive for developing and training a player is almost certain to be limited to the exact costs actually spent on the player concerned, plus a small premium. Gone are the days when a team can develop a young player and then financially profit from their investment by selling him to a big club for a huge fee. How smart was Harry Redknapp when he sold Rio Ferdinand to Leeds earlier this season?

West Ham are lucky in that they are a Premiership Club and players will naturally be attracted to them. Smaller clubs will find it very difficult to stop their better home-grown players from leaving at the first sniff of a better offer from a top team - especially if that player has served three years or more of his contract. The only olive branch being offered to smaller clubs is the possibility of compensation if a player leaves at the end of his one year contract, but even here the details and legal status of this option are uncertain.

To me it seems obvious that many lower Division clubs will now have to re-examine their player development programmes; these are expensive to run and from this summer there is very little chance of the Club benefiting financially from the transfer of its top talent. It is a shame that a system designed to make sure players are treated in accordance with the various European Treaties will essentially mean that fewer people will have the chance to develop their skills in small clubs and move up into the national and international arena.

As the Secretary General of UEFA put it last week: “We have found the Commission officials almost impossible to deal with because of their unwillingness to accept the specific needs of the grass roots of the game and their total lack of understanding of how the development of players takes place.” I agree. The fact that everyone is more confused now, after months of deliberations, has just proved to me that politicians and bureaucrats, especially European ones, should not get involved in subjects they simply do not understand. But watch out there’s more of the same on the horizon!

The complex issue of the selling of TV sports rights is next on the Commission hit list...

For your information below are the results of the Transfer fee negotiations:

• Small clubs to be compensated for training costs for young players.
• Solidarity mechanisms to redistribute a significant proportion of income to clubs, including amateur clubs, involved in the training and education of players.
• Conditional international transfers for players aged under 18, with football authorities to establish a code of conduct to guarantee training and academic education.
• One transfer period per season, plus a limited mid-season window, with a !imit of one transfer per player per season.
• Minimum/maximum contract length of one-five years.
• Contracts to be protected for three years up to age 28; two years thereafter.
• System of sanctions to preserve the proper functioning of sporting competition so unilateral breaches of contract are only possib!e at the end of the season. • Financial compensation to be paid if a contract is breached unilaterally whether by player or club.
• “Propoflionate” sporting sanctions to be applied to players, c!ubs or agents in the case of unilateral breach of contract without just cause during the protected period.
• Creation of an arbitration body, with an independent chairman.
• Arbitration to be voluntary and not preventing recourse to national courts. Chris Heaton-Harris MEP Conservative MEP for the East Midlands and Class 1 Soccer Referee!