http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/25418135

World players' union Fifpro claims the existing transfer system contravenes law and infringes footballers' rights.

And it is preparing to challenge the system in the European courts.

"Footballers are workers, and only when they enjoy the rights enjoyed by all will Fifpro be satisfied," said the union's president, Philippe Piat.

The Frenchman added his organisation would not "stand by and watch from the sidelines as football players' rights around the world are systemically disrespected and the football industry dismantles itself".

If successful, the move could allow players to serve notice on their contracts as other workers can.

In theory, that would mean a player would be able to tell his club he wanted to leave and hand in his notice. Another club could then pay up the remainder of the player's contract and he would be able to join them without a transfer fee being paid.

An intriguing proposal. Are transfer fees necessary in football? Who do they serve the most? Are they for the best of the sport?

The first thing that comes to mind is that (smaller) clubs would lose their best players without receiving that "jackpot" that the transfer fee can be. On the other hand they can just look down the ladder, spot a player and offer him a bigger salary and get that new player in without a transfer fee. But if the big clubs don't have to pay transfer fees any longer, would that mean even more insane wages for star players? Where would the money go? Surely not to cheaper tickets for fans or anything like that...

It would also mean the end for that business model of some clubs like Porto, Benfica, Ajax, Everton etc., who have made it a habit of selling their best players to keep their finances above water.

What do you think of this?

You can't get rid of transfer fees under the current system. The entire world of football would have to be totally reworked for that to ever happen.

Though I find the concept interesting... It always kind of bothered me that you can just buy other players in a way. I'd like to see a world of football where perhaps a long term contract actually had more meaning. Or that teams who develop young quality players had more means to keep them.

If they removed transfer fees they'd have to introduce caps, so that teams can keep a player by offering a larger salary, otherwise there is zero incentive for good players to play at clubs that aren't already good and are in the process of building a squad. Say a player like say Benteke would be worth more to Villa rather than they would be to say Chelsea or spurs, as I'm sure a team like Chelsea or other more financially well of teams wouldn't want to dedicate a large part of their available money to spend on someone who they aren't sure will be a key player on the team. A big problem we have now is that teams don't worry about that. They'll buy lower leagues best and most valued players on a whim.

However the problem with a cap is Europe. I don't see all the leagues agreeing on what a ceiling of what teams could spend would be. And if the cap varied from country to country, other teams would have an unfair financial advantage in the CL and EL.

So while it might be interesting to see some concepts of how the removal of transfer fees would impact things, I honestly don't quite see a scenario that is possible to implement without making it worse for less financially fortunate teams than it already is.

the tapping up of players would be ridiculous, but then the disgusting amounts that madrid etc pay during a crippling recession would be no more..

The problem is that there would be no incentive for smaller clubs to invest in the proper education of players anymore. I think it would be counterproductive for the basis work.

It's not that simple. You can make employment contracts have "poison pill" for anyone who looks to break it. For example, you put a non-compete of 1 year if the contract is bought out. For the "poison pill" to be removed, you could ask a fee, which in essence would be a transf fee.

The stuff mentioned here would be all cosmetic. Employent law and contracts are very sophisticated if you want them to be.

Stupid idea. They need to impose wage limits, so players would chose the clubs the love, not just go to P$G for the money..

Obviously players want this, this allows all the money being spent on transfer fees to then be spent on their contracts. But this would also kill the business models of clubs that aim to spot talent and then sell them for a higher price, so I don't think it's a good idea.

This + salary cap would make wonders!

Wouldn't it actually be easier for smaller clubs to afford players this way? Paying 3 years wages is cheaper than paying whatever the transfer fee would be.

Yohan Modric wrote:Wouldn't it actually be easier for smaller clubs to afford players this way? Paying 3 years wages is cheaper than paying whatever the transfer fee would be.

Naw, the bigger clubs would have it more easy to lure players away with big wages and the smaller clubs would get no compensation whatsoever.

As Sports said, clubs will just make players contract out of their rights to serve notice on their club when they want to leave.

Ok, let's assume that UEFA or FIFA make a rule that clubs cannot force players to sign contracts which deny them their right to serve a notice when they want to leave...

The problem with this kind of system is that it discourages investment of time and money in young players and it also discourages scouting. Why bother with any of that if you can get a player in their prime from another club simply by offering higher wages?

My last point goes back to the contract itself. Assuming a club can't contractually bind the player to stay, what they can do is put in a transfer-fee clause which would act like a "buy out" clause that stipulates an amount of money the player must pay to the club if they serve a notice before the contract is out. Of course, clubs interested in the player will just pay it on the player's behalf.

Taking this idea one step further: what if the "buy out" clause just said that the amount of money should be based on the market value of the player? It's now exactly the same as a transfer fee. We've gone full circle.

In my opinion, with salary cap this could work and greatly aid in dramatically improving clubs' finances. However, capping salaries fairly even in just one country would be very challenging and probably impossible Europe-wide. And without a cap transfer fee bids would just become wage wars or signing-on fees. "We had 5 million reserved for a transfer fee on you, but since that's now gone, we'll just give it to you if you sign for us".

So, yeah, some sort of restrictions on player compensation would be needed for this to work. (Although such restrictions might be welcome already in the current system).

While we can probably agree that football isn't ready in its current form for Fifpro's suggestion, we'll see what happens if they really go to court about this. I mean, laws are laws and anything can happen there, that's how the Bosman free-transfers rule came about, too.

sportsczy wrote:It's not that simple.  You can make employment contracts have "poison pill" for anyone who looks to break it.  For example, you put a non-compete of 1 year if the contract is bought out.  For the "poison pill" to be removed, you could ask a fee, which in essence would be a transf fee.

The stuff mentioned here would be all cosmetic.  Employent law and contracts are very sophisticated if you want them to be.

Well said, sports. The concept of "serving notice" is not nearly as simple as that quote makes it out to be, and it wouldn't take long for these types of contract clauses limiting the players' ability to opt out to become market standard (i.e. you don't want one, you can expect a 75% wage cut from anyone you're negotiating against just as the set market price), and there's nothing the unions could do about it from the standpoint of contract law.

That being said, there are ways to make contracts have more meaning than they currently do in football... American sports fans are shocked when I explain the transfer system to them - the negligible amount of respect given to contract lengths and terms in this sport are inconceivable in American sports leagues. The idea that big teams can dangle a fat paycheck or a chance to win in front of a player and effectively nullify the 6 year deal that player just signed would NEVER fly in any American sports league. Of course, these types of remedies remove rights from the player rather than expand them, so it's essentially the opposite of what FifPro is discussing here.

Football needs a salary cap and restriction on transfer fees spent by one club. Football is getting boring and it's too money based it's all about pleasing rich investors instead of the fans. Until we as fans do something about rich investors taking over football e.g monaco,psg city they will just ruin the game.

People really don't think do they? Salary caps in a sport that's played across different countries with different levels of taxation, fluctuating currency values and widely varied standard of living? Salary cap suggestions are about as disconnected from reality as can be.

There's a simple way to stop foreign investment and that's to ban foreign investment.

Phritz wrote:People really don't think do they? Salary caps in a sport that's played across different countries with different levels of taxation, fluctuating currency values and widely varied standard of living? Salary cap suggestions are about as disconnected from reality as can be.

There's a simple way to stop foreign investment and that's to ban foreign investment.

While I agree that salary caps will never work in football (and compared to other sports, footballers don't get paid that much), banning foreign investment is the surest way to ensure that the current top clubs remain top.

OR clubs who work their way towards the top-Borussia Dortmund.