Do you support Under-18 transfer ban in Football?

2 ANSWERS

1. Guest1115
   

   Manchester City insist that they have acted within the rules over the signing of 17-year-old defender Jérémy Hélan following the news that Fifa will be investigating the complaint made by the French side Rennes who trained Helan and claim that he signed pre-contract agreement with them as a 13-year-old.
   The case follows the two year ban handed to Chelsea by Fifa for inducing another French teenager, Gael Kakuta, to break his contract with Lens.
   It has emerged that Rennes’ complaint was made before the punishment handed out to Chelsea emerged.  
   According to Rennes’ technical director Pierre Dreossi, “Kakuta signed up for just a possibility of a full contract. For Hélan there was definitely one there, under the terms of the pre-contract agreement because he had played for his country”. If this is the case then Fifa will almost certainly be obliged to hand out some punishment to Manchester City, however all eyes will be on the appeal which Chelsea will almost certainly be launching and the outcome could set a precedent.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 9 month(s) ago  

2. Guest4794
   

   The movement of under-18 footballers would be a good step towards encouraging competition in football. For clubs without the financial clout and draw of the world’s biggest clubs it’s been a constant struggle to keep hold of any of the talented youngsters that they’ve nurtured and trained in their academies. The big clubs like Chelsea just offer big money to a player and then leave them in their youth academy in the hope of them turning into a future star; this deprives clubs of being able to develop their best prospects and often leaves them without fair compensation due to loopholes in the law.
   
   On the continent, players are not able to sign a binding contract until the age of 18, whereas in Britain, clubs can sign players on pre-contracts at the age of 16 and then professional deals at 17.  This has seen a number of players moving from overseas, including from some of the biggest clubs in Europe. Cesc Fabregas was part of Barcelona’s youth team before signing for Arsenal at the age of 16; Federico Macheda was a member of Lazio’s youth system, but due to Italian law could not sign a professional contract until the age of 18, Macheda signed for Manchester United shortly after his 16th birthday; Gerard Pique also signed for Manchester United for no fee shortly after turning 16, before returning to Barcelona in 2008.  These are just some of the high profile players who have been snapped up for little to no fee by English clubs taking advantage of laws allowing them to offer professional contracts from the age of 17.
   
   A law preventing the movement of under 18 players would stop the above happening and help teams get better value for the time and money that is spent on youth academies.  However, the EU guarantees the free movement of workers from the age of 16 and it would appear that a law change in Italy and Spain allowing them to offer contracts to players from 16 onwards to bring it in line with the current regulations in Britain would be the obvious solution.  However, this doesn’t address the domestic issue of the bigger clubs snapping up teams from the lower leagues’ talent and a system which awards more compensation to clubs is needed. It is expensive running youth teams, and if the only reward you receive is a paltry sum when your brightest prospects move to bigger teams then teams will soon stop spending money on developing footballers in this country.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 9 month(s) ago