Football players should be treated as the most important component of the Beautiful Game. Over the last couple of years, we've seen players going through prolonged contract negotiations and, in most cases, at the time convenient to football clubs with little consideration for the players' interests. When teams are not going to renew or extend your contract, they tag you along, for as long as possible, and then drop the bombshell right at the end. More like leading you up the garden path. Once again, this happens at the team's convenient time because they may have finally secured someone else to take over from you, which is why they delay their decision on your future.
A number of players were given the short end of the stick by their clubs when it came to contracts. A player would be negotiating for a three-year contract while the club would only be putting a season-long proposal on the table. Next thing you know, a player accepts a three-year contract elsewhere and he is made a bad person after failed attempts to reason with his parent club to secure his future. After all, loyalty and passion combined, who goes for a one-year contract over a three-year deal and calls themselves sane? Isn't it normal that one would go for three years over just one? Once the player comes back to say so-and-so is willing to accede to my request and they're offering me the contract I feel I need and deserve, the parent club goes to the supporters and claims: "Well, we tried everything we could to convince him to stay, but during the negotiations, it turned out that he had already accepted a contract somewhere else. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do and we wouldn't want to keep an unhappy player or stand in his way. We wish him all the best in his future endeavours." While this sounds considerate and fair, this is nothing further from the truth in most cases. Remember, before the club decides on retaining your services, they first do their checks and balances, which include questions like, "Can't we find a cheaper and younger replacement to cut our salary bill?" or, "Isn't there a free agent who can do the job in his place for us?" and it is after they exhaust their options that they finally reach a compromise. So, if that's fair and legal for them, why is it frowned upon when players do it?
Some teams have a way of painting players as greedy, disloyal and ungrateful human beings who turn their backs "on us when we need them the most". Because the supporters are played at an emotional level, manipulated, to be frank, they don't even bother to put themselves in the player's shoes or even try to get all the sides of the story. They don't even bother to ask questions, they just accept that their star player was greedy and rushed for 'greener pastures' and they start cursing him and wishing things don't work out. No normal person, let alone footballer, would jump at a season-long deal over a three-year contract. Job security is of utmost importance to everyone, but what we see is that some clubs can do as they wish, spit their players out of their mouth after they've lost their taste and players don't have the same rights about their own career choices. Players deserve a lot more respect because they are also important and they matter too! When George Maluleka hit a brick wall with his negotiations with Kaizer Chiefs, he opted for a move to Mamelodi Sundowns. To this day, some people still view him as a traitor because he 'turned his back on Chiefs when they needed him the most' and left them in the lurch. Has anyone ever tried to see things from the player's perspective or even tried to understand what happened? He suddenly became a bad apple, a disloyal and ungrateful member of the family that couldn't be trusted. He played no further part in the team's activities after making his decision. Fast-forward to the end of the season, Chiefs lose the title and who gets the blame? Yes, George Maluleka and Sundowns for weakening Chiefs! Much as it was within Chiefs' rights not to feature George in their activities and view him the way they did, even trying to get him out of the Village sooner than the end of the season according to reports, he was within his rights to do what was best for him.
When Siyethemba Sithebe signed a pre-contract with Amakhosi, AmaZulu FC saw fit to freeze him out because of the way the deal was concluded as they felt they were tackled from behind. Interestingly, this is the same foul cried by Chiefs when Downs snapped "Mido" up from them. Why would a team even get to the last six months of the contract if they really value the player? If you're prepared for life without the player, then it makes sense to allow the contract to run to the end, opening options for both parties concerned. We need to respect players and try to see things from their perspective as well. They are not just footballers but family men whose decisions affect more than just themselves. Job security goes a long way in settling one's mind. You might think the player is not giving his all, meanwhile he's preoccupied by his lack of job security. Just because clubs are bigger than individual players, it doesn't give them a 'licence to kill'. As supporters, we have to hold our teams accountable because there's no reason why they let contracts of key players reach the last six months and then play victim. Also, the fact that clubs are 'crying wolf' after their player signs a pre-contract somewhere else raises a question. What happened to the FIFA Laws which dictate that interested clubs should inform the parent club of their interest in engaging their player after his contract reaches the last six months? Is there a possibility that teams are flouting the rules of engagement, only to make noise when the shoe is on the other foot? If that's the case, as it seems, our football is in more serious danger than we think.
When we look at the players being punished for pre-contract agreements, let us also look at the different clubs' role in it because no player can initiate and complete a transaction on their own. There has to be an agent and the interested club, if not the parent club as well. They all have a role to play in messing these deals up and therefore players can't bear the brunt with everyone walking scot-free. Also, the players are usually the last to know about these things as they are handled by their agents. No one says anything about the agents, yet we all know that they are the ones running the show in South African footballers' lives and careers. The negotiations usually suit the agent and the club before it is about the player. The reason for that is simply because the agent and club will still need one another long after the retirement of the player in question, so they have to maintain a good relationship even at the current player's expense, if necessary. Before you think of a player and question his loyalty, think about what he has to go through in order to secure his future. When one of your team's favourite players gets snapped up on a pre-contract, direct your questions to your team first, the agent, the interested team and then the player because, for all we know, that's usually the order of priority in the whole process.
Cheers,
