Tapping Up Players – It Still Happens A Lot In Football

July 23, 2008

With Tottenham Hotspur reporting Manchester United to UEFA this week over their alleged underhand tactics in trying to acquire Spurs’s star player, Dimitar Berbatov, the subject of tapping up players is very much back in the spotlight .
A football club cannot, under FIFA regulations, approach players from other teams while they are under contract. Unfortunately, this rule is rarely observed and Arsene Wenger quite rightly spoke out against the bullying tactics applied by big clubs in an attempt to unsettle players whom they are targeting. He singled out Real Madrid’s chairman, Ramon Calderon, who came out with endless public statements about his desire to sign up Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.

While Wenger and Tottenham’s managers have a fair point in their observation that top clubs are conducting themselves less than honourably they seem to have short memories. It was only a few years ago that Arsenal used a loophole in the regulation preventing young footballers in Spain from signing long-term contracts with their employers. Such a law does not exist in the Premiership and Wenger had no problem with exploiting this to the fullest by snatching Cesc Fabregas from Barcelona’s youth team. Tottenham, similarly, were flirting with FC Sevilla’s coach, Juande Ramos, for most of last season before poaching him and leaving Sevilla’s leaderless going into the final few months of games.

The truth of the matter is that in the ruthless world football most clubs will cut corners and use underhand tactics to achieve their aims and objectives. Whether it would be players diving on the pitch to get awarded penalties or chairmen holding secret meetings with footballers or their agents in attempt to lure them to their respective clubs. Clubs and managers have for years lodged complaints with FIFA and UEFA about the conduct of other teams, which were tying to poach their players, but none of these complaints have ever resulted in significant penalties or fines and I doubt that they ever will.

Unless there is a regulatory restructuring with an automatic penalty issuance system in place, when those guilty of tapping players face big fines or suspension from European competitions, no one will follow the rules. As a full restructure is unlikely, banning commission payments to players’ agents would be a good start. Currently it is in the best interests of an agent for their client to move between clubs as often as possible as he, the agent, gets a hefty commission from every transfer. Should agents take up a retainer system, they might genuinely look after the player’s best interest rather than be looking for ways to enrich themselves by brokering yet another transfer.

But the bottom line is, of course, that no rules imposed by FIFA will ever be able to prevent secret transfer meetings takin place. It might prevent blatant flaunting of the law, but there is too much money in football to stop it from going away forever. It is up to the clubs, the players and the agents themselves to behave honourably. Unfortunately, judging by the way Cristiano Ronaldo is getting ready to jump ship and join Real Madrid it would probably be too much to hope that big clubs and certain players will behave responsibly in the future.

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