After the Michael Owen mini saga this summer, it would make sense that another Real Madrid alumnus to embrace his former club’s bitterest rivals. In this instance one, R. van Nistelrooy, former ambassador of the Lorg Ferg’s Empire of Salford, and now benchwarmer that the world’s biggest club™. His appearances have been massively restricted by Madrid buying every forward with two bollocks and a pulse, to the extent that he’s only appeared 4 times this season. What is interesting about Ruud’s time at Real Madrid, is that he was even more deadly than he was at Old Trafford, scoring a massively impressive 64 goals in 97 appearances.

What’s puzzling about the rumour is that although Liverpool don’t have enough strikers, their real problem has been that they’re shipping goals like, a, er, ship. It’s interesting to see a team that has been built of defensive capabilities falling apart at the seams. While a consistent plan-b goal scorer may be of some assistance, and certainly will do more with chances presented than Andriy Voronin, it’s not going to paper over all the cracks appearing in Liverpool right now.

The likely problem is that Benitez simply doesn’t have the funds to address all the issues plaguing his squad, and must look to bargain basement players like Sotiris Kyrgiakos, and to our friend Ruud. What makes this all seem like nonsense is that other outlets are reporting that Liverpool need to get rid of 4 players to ease up their wage bill. Van Nistelrooy must be on over €100k per week, and there’s no way Liverpool could, or would offer him anything near that. Unless he agrees to a massive pay cut, or a pay as you play deal, this signing is likely to remain just a rumour.

Is Gabriel Agbonlahor on his way to Arsenal

Gabriel Agbonlahor is an interesting choice for Arsenal, it’s not too much of a stretch to see him in an Arsenal side. He’s fast, fairly skillful and knows how to pass. What’s intriguing about this rumour is that the transfer is based on Agbonlahor improving his “inconsistent reputation“(sic).

The article continues:
Wenger .. considered a swoop for the England striker in the transfer window after he had hit 10 goals before last Christmas.

But Wenger’s head has been turned yet again by Agbonlahor, who has scored seven goals so far
this season but only twice in his last nine games.

The issue is likely to be price, Wenger is notoriously loath to pay over the odds for a player, even Arshavin, who was quite expensive, was a massively protracted affair, and ended up being finalised on the last day of a transfer window.

In spite of this, there is clearly a lot of potential in Agbonlahor and when he’s on form, he’s very difficult to play against. The other likely factor that will make him interesting to Wenger is his growing ability to lead the line. Wenger’s only forward who can lead a line is the occasionally useful but generally average Bendtner. Agbonlahor would certainly present an upgrade to him.

Also likely to be of interest is the players passport, for although the player quota seems unlikely, it’s always on the horizon, and a sensible manager will be conscious of mitigating this risk.

Will Carlton Cole be replacing Dimitar Berbatov and Old Trafford Next Season?

There are a number of forces at play in this little rumour, which seems to keep going in spite of itself. Firstly, United have not got the forward to lead the line that they’ve been looking for, Dimitar Berbatov, for all his guile and panache, seems to spend most matches wandering around like a man with a bad hangover. Which has not really gone down to well with the Old Trafford faithful.

Secondly, West Ham are in, what we like to call, the “Bucket o’ Financial Shite”. Swimming around in this bucket are also Hull and Liverpool. As such, Cole, who is their prize asset, has agents following him round, like vultures, to try and get him moved on.

The final piece of the puzzle is Cole himself. Jose Mourinho famously had a bet that Cole would make it big time one day, and this seems to be happening (albeit slowly). Cole is now, somewhat unfortunately, tagged with ‘Like Heskey, but with goals’, which sounds at first like damning with faint praise, but actually is probably just damning.  In fact, Cole, has matured into a very good foward, and more importantly, continues to develop.  He might never get to the level of Drogba, but he certainly could be a very effective forward at any team.

In spite of all of these happy coincidences, will Fergie spend £20 million on him come January?  The safer bet would be that he won’t.  The price is too high, and West Ham, in spite of their financial predicament are likely to dig in their heels to resist any attempts at making a deal.

There’s also rumours that Liverpool are interested, they probably are, but they can’t afford him.

The most common process for tapping up a player is for a manager to express his respect and admiration for a player through the press.

Here’s Claudio Ranieri having a crack at it:

(Mohamed Sissoko) is a player that I like a lot and I know well. I had the pleasure of coaching him at Valencia
Thanks for that Claudio.

A slightly more nefarious take on tapping up involves the use of our good friends, the football agent. Agents will meet with the club and the player to act as a conduit of information between both parties.
The classic case of this was Ashley Cole, whose eventual move from Arsenal to Chelsea was shrouded in controversy. It was noteable not only for the press it received, but also for the brazen way that the meeting took place. Cole met Chelsea manager José Mourinho, Chelsea chief executive, Peter Kenyon, and his agent Jonathan Barnett in a hotel in London.

Regardless of the way it happens, and although it’s illegal, tapping up is ingrained into the nature of football. Preventative measures have been taken, and FIFA has attempted to crack down on it. For example, Chelsea were banned for making transfers for 2 windows, following the finding that Gaël Kakuta was illegally approached. However, being the spineless losers that they are, this ruling has been overturned on appeal. The punishment meted out was a fair and good one, how better to stop this practice than by preventing the clubs from conducting business, however it’s going to take someone with more cojones than Sepp Blatter to make a difference.

What exactly was the Webster Case?

The Webster case was essentially a test case for determining whether a clause in FIFA’s Player transfer regulations. The specific rule questioned was ‘Consequences of Terminating a Contract Without Just Cause’ (Article 17) in the ‘Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players’ (http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/status_transfer_en_25.pdf) which states that players outside of the protected period may buy themselves out of a contract. The protected period for players under 28 years is three years (or seasons) from the date that they sign the contract, regardless of the length of the consequences. For players over 28, the protected period is only 2 years.
Webster’s case specifically occurred when he was playing for Hearts, in July 2005, Rangers made an approach and Webster requested a discussion with them. Hearts refused this request, and after a dispute with the owner of the club, Webster was kept out of the squad for the remainder of that season.
In court, Hearts placed Webster’s value at £5 million, however the arbitration process determined that the correct fee (based on his wages and future earnings) was £625,000, this amount was payable by the player. Webster went on to appeal this amount and the fee was subsequently reduced to £150,000.

What were the consequences of the Webster Case?

There were initial fears that the Webster case would result in a large number of players buying out their contracts and moving. So far this hasn’t happened. Apart from Webster, the highest profile move was Jonas Gutierrez from Mallorca to Newcastle. Nevertheless, the option now exists for players to do one when their contract reaches the three year mark. Which means in turn, clubs need to give players deals more regularly to ensure they don’t reach the 2/3 year mark on their contract.

What was the old transfer system?

Before the Bosman ruling, a football player could transfer between clubs if both the buying and selling club agreed. This still the case for most transfers, however in the old system also applied to players who weren’t under contract with the selling club. As a consequence, transfer fees still needed to be paid for players who were out of contact, or at least the selling club needed to grant the player a free transfer.
The other element of football transfers that the Bosman ruling effected were player quotas, which restricted the number of foreign players that could play for a club in a particularl match. In UEFA club competitions, a team could only field 3 foreign players, plus 2 ‘assimilated’ foreign player per match. Clubs could sign more than 5 foreign players, but they were restricted on a per match basis.

What exactly was the Bosman Case?

History is made out of small deeds, the ‘Bosman’ in question was a Belgian named Jean-Marc Bosman who’s contract with the Belgian club RFC Liege had expired. Bosman had an offer on the table from French club Dunkerque, however Liege refused to release Bosman without the payment of a transfer fee. To add insult to injury, Liege dropped Bosman’s wage, and made him play with first the reserve team, and then the youth team.

Bosman took his case to the European Court of justice, claiming that as a citizen of the EU, he possessed the right to ‘freedom of movement’ within the EU to look for work. The current transfer system prevented him from exercising these rights. Bosman proposed that the transfer system should change so that out of contract players could freely move to another club without a transfer fee being paid.
The court found in favour of Bosman, and made two significant decisions:

1. It was illegal for clubs to charge transfer fees for out of contract players moving between clubs in EU nations. Transfer fees were still legitimate for players who were still under contract
2. The quota systems that existed were also illegal, and clubs in the EU could field as many players from other EU states as they wished.

What were the consequences of the Bosman Ruling?

The Bosman Ruling meant that the balance of power between clubs and players shifted significantly in favour of players. Now that players can move for free once they are out of contract, clubs need to tie players to lucrative long term contracts, or risk losing them. Even if the selling clubs do wish to sell players, they need to make sure the player is on a long term contract to maximise the price they can get. The ruling has a significant impact on smaller clubs as well, who may not be able to afford to give long term contracts, meaning that larger clubs can snap up players from smaller clubs for free.
Finally out of contract players become more highly sought after, as there is no transfer fee needed for them, these players can demand higher wages.

Selling Club Interested & Player Interested

If the selling club and the player are interested, then assuming the price selling club’s price and the wage demands of the player are acceptable to the buying club, then the deal will kick off. If the terms being offered by the selling club and the player are not acceptable, the buying club can either attempt to negotiate with both parties, or walk away from the deal.

Selling Club Interested & Player Not Interested

It’s pretty rare for this to happen, generally if players find out that their manager sees them as dispensible, they’ll want to move. An excellent example of this happening was Winston Bogarde, who signed a very expensive, long term contract with Chelsea (much to Bogarde’s surprise), before everyone discovered that he was cack. He then went on to sit in the reserves for 4 years, and earned a crapload of money. Read all about it here.

Selling Club Not Interested & Player Interested

This should never happen. If the selling club doesn’t want to sell the player, then the buying club has no legal recourse to discuss the matter with the player. There are a number of different factors which could change this, including the Bosman Ruling, The Webster Ruling. The buying club could also tap up the player, although that is not only illegal but deeply immoral. In this situation, however, the selling club is still at a weakness, as if the player really wants to move, they’re not really committed to the cause of their club. This often means that the selling clubs hand is forced and they need to sell the player. The small benefit for the selling club is that they can hopefully replace a player who doesn’t want to be there with one who does. A good example of this was Joleon Lescott’s transfer to Manchester City, the player clearly wanted to move, Everton did not want to sell, but Lescott kicked up such a fuss about it that in the end, Everton needed to sell him.