In many competitions across Europe, players are "Cup-tied" each season, meaning that if you play for one team at one stage in the competition, you cannot play for another team later in the same competition. The focus of the rule is to keep the rich from getting richer by poaching players from teams already knocked out of the competition.Mike Collet writes that it is time for the rule to go. While it would be unfair to presume, it would not suprise me if Collet is a Portsmouth FC fan. Pompey's Jermain Defoe is unable to play for Portsmouth in England's FA Cup Final against Cardiff City at Wembley in May because he played for Tottenham Hotspur earlier in the competition before coming to Pompey during the Winter Transfer Window. However, Defoe is able to play for Pompey in their English Premier League campaign, where PFC currently sit sixth in the table and are chasing a UEFA Cup slot.
Likewise in Europe, players who played for one team at one stage of the UEFA Champions League or UEFA Cup cannot play for another team in later stages of the same tournament, yet are allowed to play for their new clubs in their national league.
Collet says this is stupid to have one standard for cups and one standard for leagues. But in Collet's criticism lies its folly. Cups and leagues are entirely different competitions. If one team loses in a cup tie, they are out of the competition. No worries. It would have been nice to advance obviously, but it's not the end of the world. League play on the other hand carries with it the very real chance of relegation.
Teams in poor positions in league play have much less incentive to sell their players to the teams that advance (which more often than not, the teams that advance are higher in league play) due to the risk of relegation. In addition, to deny a player to participate in League play after joining a new team in the winter transfer window could mean him missing close to 20 games. Missing the Cup games means denying a footballer his trade only 3-5 times.
For these main distinguishing reasons, the cup-tying rule is good, and will affect only a handful of footballers each year, but in exchange, will allow the mid-level teams (and high-mid-level teams like Celtic, Porto, Benfica, PSV, and Olimpiacos) to keep their best players and grow as a team, rather than being glorified farm teams for a handful of conquering finalists.
1 comment:
Should there be a Salary Cap in Football?
Personally I think there should be! It’s just getting to be stupid money in football at the top of the premiership!
It’s always the same teams at the top proving that football success is based purely on money which ruins the idea of it being a sport! They’ve done it in rugby, basketball, hockey and American football and it makes the sports more competitive and better to watch!
I do a little Spread Betting from time to time and most matches don’t hold much surprise who is going to win, its boring! I want to see a team at the bottom pulling off an amazing season beating last seasons winners in a close fought battle!
Make things fair! It shouldn’t be about money!
Plus!
All there is all that money in the premiership and barely any of it stays in the UK so it’s not even helping the economy!
From my Spread Betting, if I ever win big (which is never, I’m unlucky) it’s still nothing compared to the average premiership players weekly wage!
This Rant was brought to you by Spread Betting Spike.
Post a Comment