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Blatter's 'soccer slavery' argument was nonsense
To quote once again that a perceptive German sports writer who told me: "Sepp Blatter has 50 new ideas a day and 51 of them are bad."
- By Brian Glanville, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:08 July 15, 2008
I must quote once again that a perceptive German sports writer who told me: "Sepp Blatter has 50 new ideas a day and 51 of them are bad."
Within a recent few days, he came up with one of the dottiest of all, and topped it by reiterating another.
His daft reference to "soccer slavery" in the case of today's millionaire players, with reference to Cristiano Ronaldo in particular, invoked fury at Manchester United, and the anger of black players such as Paul Parker.
They resented the facile use of the world slavery as an insult to the history of those thousands of blacks who were enslaved.
I'd rather ridicule it than rage at it and highlight what players faced 60-odd years ago in England, when Jimmy Guthrie, right half and captain of the Portsmouth team which won the FA Cup in 1939, fought against a contract system which bound clubs to players in perpetuity for minimal wages.
Jimmy alas got nowhere and indeed there were leading players who were of the opinion that as soccer was a team game no man should be paid more than another.
Even when Jimmy Hill, the successor to Guthrie, had the maximum wage (then £20 a week) abolished in 1961, clubs still were able to cling to their players to the end of their contracts.
The "slave" Ronaldo, who seems determined to join Real Madrid, scrapes by on £120,000 a week.
The Bosman ruling by the European Court in 1996 very emphatically put the ball in the players' court.
Freedom of contract was very properly established, so a player can walk away form his team as soon as his agreement ends. But should clubs have no rights at all?
Having talked such nonsense, Blatter then quickly followed up by reiterating that he would continue to fight the European Union over his insistence that all European clubs should field a quota of native-born players.
In my view they should, but Blatter knows perfectly well that the European Union calls the shots and has no intention of wavering.
Certainly I find it objectionable that an English club like Arsenal can time and again field teams without a single British player. But only the skill of Italy's Artemio Franchi when President of Uefa kept the Union at bay for years. His successors have been lesser men.
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