Players Vs Clubs, Who actually has the power?

By: Rob | December 15th, 2008

The last day of the transfer window was really, really exciting it has to be said. September 1st 2008, Man City announce they suddenly have all the money in the world, Robinho ends up at Eastlands and Dietmar Berbatov has to choose between the two Manchester clubs while the whole world looked on, excited.

Berbatov of course chose United in the end. That day did bring up the age old question about player-power, as both Robinho and The Berb had adjitated for a long time to get their transfers done. Robinho had come out 24 hours before and announced his objective was Chelsea, and Berbatov refused to play for Spurs untill they let him go north.

So as the next transfer window rolls around, it got me thinking, are we really living in an age for player power? Or, are the clubs starting to take it back?

Because, I don’t think its quite as cut and dry as the players being in control. Sure, The Berb and Robinho left their clubs with no choice but to sell them off – but Robinho didn’t end up where he expected. And Berbatov had to take matters into his own hands, and drive to Manchester himself.

The last day might have been really exciting, but remember the rest of the transfer window? They all really long sagas, where the players ended up going nowhere. Gareth Barry is still at Aston Villa even though he said in the press he wanted to join Liverpool, Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t complete the “dream” move to Madrid, Xavi Alonso handed in a transfer request and is still at Liverpool, Frank Lampard stayed in London despite the The Special One trying to woo him to Milan and Didier Drogba stayed put even though he made absolutely no secret of the fact he wanted to hell out of West London.

It was mostly the same story abroad. Samuel Eto’o didn’t go anywhere despite being told by Barca he could, David Villa neither came to the Prem or moved to Madrid, and despite rumours to the contray, Kaká stopped talking about wanting to play in the Prem.

So a very large percentage of those seemingly unhappy players didn’t move at all? So do the clubs actually have the power afterall? Barca could have been held to ransom by Eto’o. but they weren’t. Drogba didn’t do a Berbatov and fly to Milan to negotiate with Mourinho himself afterall, and Ronaldo didn’t have the bottle to burn his bridges alá Robinho.

The truth is for the players, is that largely they aren’t in control anymore, especially in the Prem. Because some of the owners are absurdly rich, they can’t be held to ransom anymore. If Drogba had tried to get out, Roman could have concievably just left him in the reserves complaining. He can afford to. He did with Shevchenko afterall.

But with the Credit Crisis looming, I think we need to turn the question around. The people who have the power now, are neither the club that owns the player, or the player adjitating for a move. The people with the power are the buying club.

Gareth Barry would have gone to Liverpool if they would have paid the £18m Villa valued him for. So Villa have a bit of power there, in that they put the pricetag up, but Liverpool were the ones in control, as they could have got him if they got behind the deal as they did with Robbie Keane. They basically picked Keane ahead of Barry. Looks like a mistake now.
The same is true of Eto’o. The only people willing to pay for him were the retirement homes, and he still wanted to play at the top. So he had no choice but to stay. Drogba too – Milan didn’t want to pay Chelsea’s asking price, and neither did Inter.

Ronaldo, it seems wasn’t convinced enough that Real would actually stump up the money. He could have sat out alá Berbatov, he could have gone on strike, but if Real wouldn’t have paid the money that United wanted, he’d be left completely in the lurch.

Just look at Robinho. It’s lucky for him that City did suddenly have loads of money to throw around, because Chelsea seems disinterested in paying £30m for him. If City hadn’t suddenly become richer than God, then he would have been stranded. Not wanted by Madrid, not wanted by anyone else.

So while players can still weild a bit of power and talk about moving all they like, really they have to be sure that the interested club is that interested. Perhaps this is why we have yet to see the big clubs initiate the ‘Webster Clause’ (where players can buy out their contracts and move abroad). Theoretically it’d be easy for clubs to pay the contract for the players and let them move on, but the player would have to be 110% sure the club actually would do it, or they could end up without a club. $Barry didn\'t join Gerrard$