Soccer City FC
It’s pre-season in European Football, with all the big leagues such as the English Premiership, La Liga and Serie A taking their annual break prior to the new season. Obviously this is the period where managers throughout the globe really earn their salt, in building, tweaking, or keeping together squads. But do the players themselves occupy too much power in the transfer process, as we look specifically at the release clause.
So, what is a release clause? Perhaps best described as a division of a contract, a release clause allows a player to move from his club to another once a certain amount of money in transfer fees is triggered. For example, English Championship side Blackpool last season acquired Ireland international Wes Hoolahan, but such was the players’ ambition, that the contract could only be agreed with a £250k release clause. This has enabled bigger, more attractive clubs, such as Norwich City and Charlton Athletic to trigger this release clause and talk to the player, thus making a move away from Bloomfield Road imminent it would seem for the clubs’ best player.
The release clause now seems to be a necessary evil in the game, in order to attract the better players to your club. Unfashionable teams like the aforementioned Blackpool don’t seem to have any room to manoeuvre with these players, who seem to hold all the aces. Drawing on the above example, Hoolahan is definitely worth in excess of £750k, which proves how much money The Seasiders have missed out on when they do eventually sell the midfielder.
It’s not just about attracting players to a club though, release clauses are even needed to keep players at their existing teams! Take Steven Fletcher of Scottish club Hibernian as a prime example; he is rumoured to have a £500k release clause in his contract which would enable him to move to a club (namely Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid) for about ten times under his market value! Without this clause in his contract, Fletcher might have moved on a free transfer when his original contract expired, so Hibs have been held to ransom in order to keep their player for an extra couple of years. Despite being in the UEFA Cup, Hibernian simply don’t have the financial capacity to even contemplate offering Fletcher a deal to rival Madrid’s.
The essence of the release clause is – in a nutshell – making the rich richer and the poor poorer in world football. Looking at the examples here, the monetary gap between the market value of the player and his release clause isn’t actually an awful lot in the grand scheme of things – certainly a pittance to the teams who want to sign the players. However, that £500k gap to Blackpool, and £4.5m gap to Hibernian are absolutely massive amounts of money to them, which they could reinvest into the squad. Instead, they’re left with minimal amounts, which in their respective leagues are as previously stated, a pittance. Selling these players definitely has a knock-on effect when wanting to sign new players, with people questioning the ambition of the club, and a domino effect could even occur, with more players wanting to leave.
The competitive nature of the game is ebbing away with rules such as the release clause; gone are the days of smaller clubs like Ipswich Town conquering Europe on an undersized budget and the like, for the simple reason that their best players would be poached long before Europe was even a possibility. Although top scorer Paul Mariner went to Arsenal in the late 80’s, this was after his 31st birthday, and The Tractor Boys saw his best years at Portman Road, and not Highbury. As a comparison, after their smaller exploits into Europe earlier this decade, Town had their best players picked off, with Keiron Dyer, Matt Holland, Matteo Serini and Darren Ambrose to name but a few all leaving the club to pastures new. Although I don’t know the ins and outs of those transfer dealings, I’d be very surprised if the players didn’t have some sort of release clause. For the record, Ipswich have been in administration since, and are in the second flight of English football – a heavy comedown from six years ago when they beat Inter Milan in the UEFA Cup.
So, is the release clause good for the game? It’s definitely good for the individual player, who can quickly jump up the career ladder with a small release clause, but bad for the clubs, who don’t have a leg to stand on if a bigger team wants their prized assets. I’m not suggesting we should go back to the state of the game in the 1950’s, where the club held all the power, with a salary cap etc, but we need to strike a happy medium, otherwise Football as we know it will deteriorate even further.
Hoolahan's time with The Seasiders may be ending thanks to his release clause.
Image details: Tottenham Hotspur v Blackpool - Carling Cup served by picapp.com
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