Very good blog Jarrod, well though-out and well-written. I completely agree that player power is too great at the minute, and loyalty to a club seems to be, by and large, a thing of the past… a sad state of affairs indeed.

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Bomber.
Worse thing to happen in football ever. Transfer fees between clubs however large, pretty much stayed in the game, it was like Monopoly money. The money now paid to players and agents is going out of the game and into big fat overseas bank accounts. The only way to replenish this money is through fans, by gate money, Sky subscriptions and merchandising. We give our loyalty but we are seen as nothing more than cash machines. Sometimes I wish my Dad had taken me fishing or to the speedway instead of to the Hawthorns. I’d have got bored with both of those after a couple of years and would probably have gone on to do something useful with my life like discovering penicillin or writing War and Peace.

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The problem is not over contracts, signed and then broken … afterall it will be a matter of opinion about who breaks what and how … the problem is the “Sky Money” and how that is shared around.

If you concentrate the wealth across a small number of clubs, their influence becomes overwhelming.

There is no reason why Frank Lampard (to take the current example) shouldn’t work out his contract. There is no reason why he shouldn’t be trying to negoticate another contract on whatever terms he can, with whoever he can, whenever he can. It is just a shame that the businesses that he is negotiating with are able to distort the market for the less well off businesses within the industry.

So if the pendulum has swung too far, how is it to be returned?

Perhaps a way back to some sort of normality (my word, my opinion) would be to insist that football clubs behaved like other businesses and be maintained on a sound financial base? The high levels of gearing (Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool and other wannabes) distort and distabilise the industry, across the world not just in the UK.

Bosman good for football? … absolutely! SKY good for football? … perhaps this is the real question?

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I don’t completely believe the “hard up small clubs” argument.
Applying the freedom of movement point across all businesses and ANY business is in danger of losing its best staff to another company for more money – and most of these staff don’t have a length of contact applied to their job.

Any other business can’t rely on selling its employees to stay afloat.

Football is lucky in that way in that it can both rely on its customers (the fans) buying its service (entertainment) to generate money AND if required it can sell it’s employees to another business.
It can also receive prize money – something that other corporations cannot do.

If football was run as well as any corporate brand that you would care to name is they wouldn’t need to sell players as they would be being paid the Market rate; and they wouldn’t have to rely on prize money or TV money.

If this was the case JMB wouldn’t have had that much of an effect on the game as a whole – and there’d be less chance of a Frenchman turning out as a left back for England, Scotland, or Wales (depending on where he fancies!).

As far as JMB’s effech on us in the here-and-now – I was gutted to see Gera leave – but not as gutted as I am to see us NOT operating along the same lines.

WHERE ARE OUR BOSMAN SIGNINGS?!!

It’s still a level playing field – why aren’t we attracting players on a free with big signing on fees?

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Excellent work once more Jarrod, you’ve only done another blog because we were talking about Cyril’s post being so good the other day haven’t you?!

I was only 14 when the Bosman ruling came in, and can’t remember much of last week, so I’m not the best to comment on Pre Bosman / Post Bosman era.

I do however believe that the amount of money in football is ridiculous. I also think that the entire set up at football clubs is wrong.

How can players be paid more than a Manager?!

Why don’t managers ever let their contracts run down and leave on a Bosman?

Why do managers always get sacked, and not under performing players?

What’s going to happen when the bubble bursts and we run out of money to pay these footballers increasing wage demands?

I don’t blame the players personally, it’s not them who increased wage offers, it’s the clubs that do it, to try to attract them to play for them. West Bromwich Albion are not one of the more stupid clubs, they have a structure in place that they will not budge on. Yes, it means we lose out on talent, but it also means that if kept in place, there will ALWAYS be a West Bromwich Albion Football Club in the top 2 tiers of the Englisg game.

In short, football is mental, it makes no sense at all, and never will either. That’s why it keeps us all so interested, and logging on to message boards Mid July, instead of attempting to make a dent in our ever increasing workload, spending money we haven’t got, driving for 4 hours to random away matches on a Tuesday night to get soaked through…..and I for one LOVE IT!

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We have now lost the two most influencial players of our team from last season. I just hope TM can bring in the quality that is needed to replace them!!

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Personally, i think the Bosman ruling, is in principle, a good thing.

In the past players were treated very badly by their respective clubs, unfortunately, rather than finding a solution that suits both parties, we have witnessed a complete 180 degree turnaround.

In short, i have no issues with a player who has served out the term of his contract, that the club were happy to offer and he was happy to sign, then if he wants to move on then that is his prerogative.

I do however abhor the petulant behaviour of players such as Curtis Davies, who was quite happy to sign a four year deal, only to effectively go on strike in order to instigate a move just six months after PLEDGING his services for said four years.

Gentlemen, Bosman is not the problem,
MORALITY or indeed the lack of it most certainly is.
There is one reason for scruples within footballers to be a distant memory, that of course is copious amounts of money often bordering on obscene, and the reason for that……Sky TV and it football overkill.

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Just think of the players that could have brought this case to court… Bernt Haas for example – then teams would get a player on an Haas…. a free haas anyone ??

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Jarrod, like any well presented argument, questions begin in the mind of the reader. Top players get (I never use the word EARN for mega-buck annual salaries) fantastic salaries in much the same way top gaffers in Industry get millions per annum. But neither can be compared with the factory sweeper or cleaner. I would like to see ALL salaries published for every job so we could all see who’s diddling us. None of us would wish to see a player of Astle’s stature cleaning windows, Len Millard pushing stuff around a factory floor, both finished by the rigours of the old caseball, but by the same token the multi-millionaires shame everything they touch with their obscene greed. It used to cost two pints of beer to watch a match. Now it’s a lump of your mortgage, or in my case, pension. Why humans cannot meet somewhere in the middle I don’t know. All it needs is a little of that most sought after commodity, COMMON SENSE. I have a feeling I’ve just proved your point instead of arguing with it.

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