Players who want away!

morris.minor

morris.minor

First Team
Well done to West Ham and Chelsea standing up to tiresome overpaid players.
Both clubs left their disrupting players out of the squads and both won convincingly without them!
 
I do wonder if this will open up a can of worms that the clubs will regret. A few years back Ronaldo talked about being treated like a slave when he wasn't being allowed to move clubs. Everyone laughed but he was right - employers are on very dodgy ground if they start denying players a move to a club that is offering much higher wages. I'm no expert but from the little employment law I know anti slavery laws won't allow them to 'let him rot in the reserves' I.e. deliberately ruin someone's career because because you don't want them going to a rival. Contract or not.

 
anti-slavery on £100k a week!? Is he guaranteed a starting place on name alone?

Not picking a player isn't against the law.
 
Well wasn't it anti slavery laws that brought about our current employment laws and led to the Bosman ruling? No, not picking a player isn't against the law but maliciously damaging an employee's career probably is. Would Chelsea win a case brought by Costa if they deliberately didn't play him to teach him a lesson? Has an in-demand player been treated like that before? I can think of Yaya Toure but I'm not sure there were people lining up to pay him 2/3 times what he was on so I'm not sure he'd be able to prove they'd damaged his career.

As I say I don't know much about employment law but I suspect that this, along with the large amounts of transfer fees clubs would lose letting contracts run down, is the reason that players always get a move if they want one.

 
"employers are on very dodgy ground if they start denying players a move to a club that is offering much higher wages."

Absolute piffle.

The contract is the contract. The player is an employee - and if the employer chooses not to play him, that's the employer's right. Pay his wages, but you don't have to cater for his every whim. Look at Berahino as Albion.

The ONLY reason clubs tend to let these players leave when they throw their toys out of the pram is that when the contract ends, no one has to buy out the contract. That is the only reason there are transfer fees these days - the transfer fee is basically an offer to have the employer and employee agree to cancel the current contract before it ends.

Bosman was about buying the player's "registration" after the contract had ended - a wholly different scenario.

The reality is that most employers will want rid of players in these circumstances - but there is nothing a player can do to force a sale if the club doesn't want to sell and is happy to let the player be part of a squad and not playing. No slavery issues at all.

99% of the time, the clubs will roll over and accept the reality that money talks. It doesn't follow that the law is on the player's side. it isn't. All that happens is that common sense usually prevails over what the law says is the right answer.
 
Well you'd know more than me Seafront but I'm sure that I read about Mae West winning a big case years ago about being held to a contract that was seen as exploitative. Also others in the entertainment industry more recently. I'm sure the stuff I read made mention of being unreasonably treated and malicious damage to one's career.

 
As I'm now back from Hell, sorry Hull, and attempting to stay awake for the boxing I can expand a bit on what I'm on about. The point is about worker's freedom of movement and how FIFAs 'laws' are at odds with regular employment law.

I can't remember the details about Mae West (or whoever it was) but I think she signed a contract as an up and coming actress. Once she'd done a few films she was hot property and they had her signed up on a long deal for peanuts. She wanted out but they wanted to make her do loads of films as per the contract. She refused and a court case ensued. They found that whether you've got a contract or not antislavery laws meant you can't force someone to work for you it is simply a case of compensation. Other cases have reinforced this principle in the UK and now people on fixed term contracts can buy themselves out if they don't want to work for someone.

Football has a real problem in that the whole system places restrictions on the worker's freedoms unlike any other industry. In the old days the club held your registration and could basically force you to work for them - the club's strength has been eroded by various cases over the years including Bosman. More recently FIFA has been at odds with the EU over these restrictions and the Court of Arbitration for sport keeps passing judgements that could potentially undermine the whole transfer system - see the Webster ruling below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster_ruling?wprov=sfla1

As I say I'm no employment law expert and this is all from memory of a few contract law modules that I've studied a few years back and a few articles I've read so please feel free to correct me.

The point I'm making about Costa is that Chelsea can't afford to start playing hardball with him because he may be able to leave on a Webster and China FC will only have to pay his remaining wages instead of a transfer fee. Presumably if they try and let him 'rot in the reserves' it's not likely to do their compo case any favours. There's millions at stake here so surely a big case is coming.

 
Are footballers employees or contractors?
I doubt they are employees in the normal sense of the word.
Imagine the PAYE tax on £100,000 per week.

If you are not an employee you don't get employee law rights.
 
Common says surely must win, though this can conflict with law. Player can give up trying, be crap, and still demand wages whilst hanging with the reserves. And if its a player stating he wants to leave and nit play, then why not withhold salary as he is withholding his labour
 
Difficult to make any judgement as we are not privy to the full facts of the case, nor have we seen the players contracts, but all we have to go on is what the media are sensationalising.

Perhaps the contract has a release clause that if an offer was made for the player, then if it met certain criteria, he could leave the club, so that he could further his career. Perhaps certain promises have been made to the player which have been reneged upon.

Football club owners believe that they own their players and their futures,. They don't, players are employees who should be free to move their labour as and when they want, as like any other employee.
 
Hoof_It - 15/1/2017 04:36

Are footballers employees or contractors?
I doubt they are employees in the normal sense of the word.
Imagine the PAYE tax on £100,000 per week.

If you are not an employee you don't get employee law rights.
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All football players are employees, and their earnings are taxed and subject to NIC as any other employee's would be - their numbers are just much, much higher.

The nuance here is that they are employees, but on fixed term contracts, lasting a year, 2, 3, 4 years etc. Their employment is due to end on that date. Most "ordinary" employees would have an employment contract which has no anticipated end as such, just a right on both sides to give fair notice - a month, two months etc. That allows freedom of movement.

A contract has two parties. Only those two parties can seek legal redress on the contract - that is "privity" of contract. So, a football club agrees with a player a fixed term employment contract, and only those two sides can agree to rescind the contract early - and both sides must agree, otherwise the terms and conditions of the contract remain enforceable, even if one side wants to rescind it.

In football, as SDD said, there is a strange but effective way of transferring a player to another club if he is still "under contract". The club and the player agree to accept damages from the buying club for rescinding the current contract (the transfer fee) and the price paid is going to decrease the closer to the date of the end of the "fixed term" current contract. That's why clubs like to have a player sign a "new deal" when the player is likely to leave anyway - to bump up the transfer fee payable. It's a win/win.

The problems arise when one side wants to sell/be sold, and the other doesn't. There is absolutely nothing that the other side can do - these situations are rare, but do happen...Berahino being the most obvious current one. Or a player deciding to sit tight and collect his wages while not playing, even though the club want to sell him.

SDD - your reference to the Mae West situation would be where a court has ruled that there was no "level playing field" when the initial contract was made - i.e. one side takes advantage of another who doesn't realise what he is signing up for. Courts don't like to second guess what two parties have negotiated - they are not to be used to give a better deal to someone who made a bad deal - but where there is clear evidence that one side has taken advantage of another (or there were "unfair terms" etc) a court will give a ruling like you mention.

With footballers these days , and their highly remunerated agents, that likelihood is close to zero.


 
GaryRB - 15/1/2017 08:13

Common says surely must win, though this can conflict with law. Player can give up trying, be crap, and still demand wages whilst hanging with the reserves. And if its a player stating he wants to leave and nit play, then why not withhold salary as he is withholding his labour
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This already happens, it's called a transfer request, if they put in a transfer request they forfeit remainder of contract, otherwise it's up to the buying club to absorb that contract and in some instances they don't so you end up with a situation like Ravanelli where derby kept paying him for years even though he was playing elsewhere. The purchasing club didn't pay as much as Derby so they were making up the shortfall for the length of the contract. Course that says more about the quality of contract lawyers in that town back then than much else
 
cockbeard - 16/1/2017 16:51

GaryRB - 15/1/2017 08:13

Common says surely must win, though this can conflict with law. Player can give up trying, be crap, and still demand wages whilst hanging with the reserves. And if its a player stating he wants to leave and nit play, then why not withhold salary as he is withholding his labour
Click to expand...

This already happens, it's called a transfer request, if they put in a transfer request they forfeit remainder of contract, otherwise it's up to the buying club to absorb that contract and in some instances they don't so you end up with a situation like Ravanelli where derby kept paying him for years even though he was playing elsewhere. The purchasing club didn't pay as much as Derby so they were making up the shortfall for the length of the contract. Course that says more about the quality of contract lawyers in that town back then than much else
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I'm talking about handing in a request and refusing to play. Many hand in a request and still give 100%, remember Baby Fletch playing away to Luton when we needed him after the deal had reportedly been done for him to go to West Ham. Didn't he tell the rest of the team after the game(or so the story went I think)
 
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