It seems like this is all coming out of nowhere. Any fan of the game knows that the “tapping-up” allegations have always been prominent but rarely has it been so harshly punished. From United’s perspective, they were accused of tapping up Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney in the recent past and accused Real Madrid of tapping-up Ronaldo(the accusing needed not be done, Ronaldo was caught on camera). Now, we have the tapping up issue of Paul Pogba.
This morning, FIFA announced the two-year transfer ban of Chelsea Football Club for acquiring the signature of Gael Kakuta, who had signed a non-solicitation agreement with French club Lens. This evening, The Times are reporting that a similar case has been filed against United for the signing of Le Havre youngster Paul Pogba and that the situation is not yet resolved, according the club’s managing director.
In a matter of days, we’ve heard about three issues that could potentially harm English teams. First, Michel Platini singled out Manchester City’s spending and claimed they would not be allowed to participate in Europe if they could not balance the books – all the while not mentioning the actions of Real Madrid. Now there are two more issues with top English clubs that could see a serious downsizing of the English club dominance – assuming the sanctions are carried out.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Why single out Man City and not say anything about Real Madrid????
This is probably not true… but please let it be.
It’s FIFA v England.
Sepp Bladder is the devil incarnate.
This is just UEFA having a bone to pick with English clubs.
How was Messi when he arrived at Barca and Kaka when he arrived at Milan? And what was the circumstances? Just wondering….
Oh man – FIFA and UEFA just want the EPL to breakaway don’t they? This is going to be like Khrushchev(??) and Kennedy. With Scudamore being Kennedy and Blatter being Khrushchev and Platini being Castro.
Let’s just hope the 39th game isn’t the Bay of Pigs!
Could that actually happen? Have the BPL be an independent league?
that would be awesome
if uefa are going to do this, lets hope they do it properly and consistently with no hints of favoritism.
This would be cool.
Agree that the Chelsea ban, and these charges against United are UEFA/FIFA striking out at EPL dominance–The premier league wouldn’t breakaway tho b/c it would mean the English Clubs would have to give up the Euro money (estimated to be @ 800 mil euros divided amongst the 32 teams in the group stage of the CL for this year–Haven’t seen figures for the new Europa League, but assume it’s payouts, while not on CL level, are substantial)
From being the most challenging and most powerful league in the world, the EPL, now has lost Ronaldo and could seen lose the power for two years to see transfers involving their top teams. And to think Ferguson turned his back on the transfer market while it was available to him. No doubt, this will be resolved, and the transfer market for Chelsea (and Man U if it comes to that) will be eased. But not before a great deal of he said, he said, and a souring of relations between the UK and Europe–particularly as Real Madrid has made “tapping up” its reason to exist. Ahem, wasn’t Ronaldo still under contract???
Seems legit, they should actually come down more heavy handed on the clubs.
That said, this is a horribly written article. Tapping up isn’t the crime, the breach of contract is. Ronaldo didn’t breach his contract with United as Real bought him out. There is a major difference between talking in the press about a desire to sign a player, and actually signing a Youth team player to a contract, while he is contractually obligated to another club. It’s not as if Chelsea agreed to a fee with Lens for the player, they stole him, Lens received no compensation.
Complaining about a FIFA vendetta against English clubs falls flat when it’s the French club Lens who initiated the process, and the most recent clubs to be banned for this issue were Swiss and Kuwaiti.
Hopefully these type of cases continue, it will only clean up the game
However, “tapping up” is also against FIFA regulations. I struggle to see where I said anything about Ronaldo breaching his contract. Ronaldo was photoed Walter di Salvo, a fitness coach of Real Madrid last season and United subsequently complained to FIFA. Real Madrid were cleared because it could not be proved that Ronaldo and Salvo had met to discuss a transfer to Real Madrid(it’s fairly obvious, however).
Gael Kakuta was 15 years old at the time he left Lens. A 15-year-old in France cannot sign a professional contract. Kakuta had a non-solicitation agreement with Lens. Chelsea allege that they were told he was a free agent, although he was not because of the no-solicitation agreement.
Your third paragraph begins as if it’s going to have a point but it never appears. It’s not the charge that is being disputed as unfair, it is the disproportionate punishment of FIFA, not of Lens.
Blatter has shown over and over again his bias against the EPL, since Italy is going down this year, its not surprising he’s doing his best to send the EPL down with them.
Also, Messi came to Barcelona as a youth player because he needed surgery for a growth horomone defect, and River Plate couldn’t afford to pay for it.
anyone know of the “ronaldo caught on camera” bit mentioned in the article for tapping up from real madrid? it’s obvious what happened but curious what the “caught on camera” bit was about… any links? thanks in advance
NH
From last year: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/1274353/Reals-shady-Rondezvous.html
If it’s all a conspiracy, then why hasn’t anything happened to Arsenal or Liverpool? Seems to me that Liverpool has had a lot more recent success in Europe than either Man U or Chelsea… do we really believe that Platini will be able to limit City’s spending? Do we really believe Sepp Blatter is out to ruin the most popular league worldwide? I doubt it.
The fact that youu brittish snobs think this is a anti-english campaign by FIFA reveals not how clever you are at seeing beneath the surface, but how clueless you are about the world of football outside of your island. The office of FIFA is full of many cases like this one and have been for years. It’s one thing for fans to ramble on about conspiracy stupidities like that, but when I see many english so-called journalists/esteemed writters with theit tin hats on, it really highlights their ignorance to what is happening beyond the UK shores; as usual “if it’s not happening in the UK then it never happened”.