MARTIN SAMUEL: Let's all get real over this story of slavery...and jazz

07 September 2009 14:50
Jeremy Boga was just 11 when Chelsea poached him. His club, ASPTT Marseille, are taking legal advice on whether his move was in contravention of FIFA article 19, governing international transfers involving minors. If proven, Chelsea's transfer embargo could be extended beyond January 2011. Good story, one problem. ASPTT Marseille are not a football club in what might be termed the conventional sense, engaging in transfer activity and drawing up contracts with employees. They are grassroots and amateur, part of a community-based federation governing a variety of sports and pastimes and possessing 200,000 members throughout France. The first was formed in 1897 by Bordeaux postal workers with a shared interest in cycling and now there are approaching 200 ASPTTs nationwide, ranging all the way to Guadeloupe and Martinique. Federico Macheda Precious cargo: Federico Macheda gets a lift after scoring for Manchester United but Lazio deserved compensation for losing their prized asset In the south-east league in which ASPTT Marseille compete there are 33 such clubs, offering everything from kayaking to jazz dance. So, ASPTT are not to be confused with Olympique Marseille, a professional Ligue 1 football club managed by Didier Deschamps. Temporarily leaving aside the moral issues around scouting for schoolboys or offering inducements to parents, if it is decided that ASPTT Marseille have an entitlement to Boga, and Chelsea acted illegally, we open the door to a world in which the local scout troop may attempt a claim every time a player joins a professional academy, on the grounds that the 43rd brigade's Sunday league team have been denied credit and financial reward for nurturing his talent. This is a pivotal moment in the evolution of the modern game and far too serious to be undermined by the demonisation of a particular club or league. Nobody is particularly impressed at the way Chelsea have conducted their business but it is important to draw the correct boundaries and distinctions. Talented schoolboy footballers outgrow their environment all the time and have to be free to ascend the ladder. David Beckham used to play for Ridgeway Rovers but when he went to train with Manchester United as a teenager it was a case of wishing him well, not bringing in the lawyers. How could he possibly have fulfilled his ambitions from a Chingford parks pitch? Senrab, a club in Stepney, east London, are a production line for England footballers including John Terry, Jermain Defoe, Sol Campbell, Ledley King and Ray Wilkins, but the reward is youth level trophies and kudos, not a fat chunk of cash. Perspective is needed. When the word 'slavery' is bandied around so readily we need to identify what exactly is dehumanising about giving a young man the opportunity to improve his terms, conditions and job prospects when the alternative is to bind him to a contract at a young age that could impact on his professional opportunities and earning potential. Clearly, a compromise is necessary. Michel Platini, president of UEFA, says that a player should sign his first contract with the professional club that produced him and that is reasonable. Talent needs to be spread around. Perhaps those contracts should run a maximum of three years, though, from 16 to 19 to allow self-determination, or include a statutory release clause of £10m if agreed by all parties, so proper compensation could be arranged. As it stands right now, English clubs seem to want it all ways. More from Martin Samuel... * MARTIN SAMUEL: We'll find out soon if Capello's England magic is an illusion 06/09/09 * MARTIN SAMUEL: Gordon Ramsay? He's a curse on swearing 04/09/09 * Martin Samuel: This was not Millwall's problem; this was down to West Ham 26/08/09 * Martin Samuel: We've every right to bang on about sex 25/08/09 * Flintoff: 'I'm not a great cricketer, I'd rather be known as a decent bloke' 24/08/09 * Martin Samuel: Course we were going to win, but don't say you didn't fear the worst 23/08/09 * Martin Samuel: Why blame Harry Redknapp when the buck stops in the boardroom? 23/08/09 * Martin Samuel: The old king is dead...so let's build a new team of heroes 21/08/09 * VIEW FULL ARCHIVE They demand the player and the bargain. This is not right. If Lazio are to be deprived of Federico Macheda by Manchester United, they should at least be entitled to a significant remunerative transfer fee which could then be reinvested in the club; they cannot survive as two-time losers. It is hard to imagine that any person of fair mind would object to a properly administered system that rewarded the producers of talent yet maintained the rights of a gifted individual to realise his ambitions. This would also deliver English football from the pious sermons of hypocrites. Chelsea, among a number of clubs, have played fast with the rules for too long and the trade in youth players is a murky business. Yet an important issue cannot be hijacked by point-scoring opportunists such as Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of Bayern Munich, who recently accused Arsenal of kidnapping French players, or Jean- Pierre Escalettes, head of the French federation, who colourfully claimed English clubs recruit and nationalise young athletes from Paris ghettos. Rummenigge is acting chairman of the European Club Association, yet has rarely offered a proposal that would not directly benefit Bayern Munich and just about all he says can be disregarded on those grounds. And, far from plundering the mainland, as he suggests, nine of the Arsenal players who won the FA Youth Cup in scintillating fashion last season were English, and the exotic names on show were more evidence of a cosmopolitan capital than nefarious activity in the academies of Europe. As for Escalettes, this is fine talk coming from a man whose football clubs as good as colonise swathes of Africa, netting players like a super-trawler and then discarding the failures, often with no means of returning home. English football is becoming increasingly aware of the African market but there is a reason Culture Foot Solidaire, a charity aiding African teenagers illegally trafficked and then abandoned, is based in Paris, not London. There are 500 illegal football academies operating in Accra, Ghana, alone, all searching for the next Michael Essien. French football is in no position to lecture any country - with the possible exception of Belgium - on the subject of trafficking. In June, it was confirmed that Culture Foot Solidaire were monitoring 987 lost boys in France. This is not to excuse, defend or condone Chelsea, or any English club that think they can ransack the market without paying their way. The full details of the Gael Kakuta case have not yet emerged - Chelsea dispute the guilty verdict as well as the punishment - and any claim that the club has been treated harshly by FIFA should at least wait until then. As for the circumstances around the acquisition of Boga, Chelsea must accept that the age of the boy will attract negative scrutiny even if, as it transpires, his father was already living in London when the move took place. This does not alter the fact, though, that to claim the same rights for ASPTT Marseille as exist for a professional club such as RC Lens is madness that ends with young players tied to their first Sunday league team, unable to move or improve. Now is the time for cold reason, not populist rhetoric, if we are to avoid doing more harm than good. The gung-ho desire to regulate the trade in young players that followed FIFA's transfer ban on Chelsea will prove devastating unless handled correctly. For instance, recent discussed legislation forbidding the movement of athletes in all sports below the age of 18 would, if implemented a decade ago, have left Andy Murray stranded in Dunblane practising with his brother Jamie all his young life, rather than enrolled at the Sanchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona. The result: no future Wimbledon champion and one very angry and bitter young man. There is a fair way through this, however, and it is important the authorities take the time to find it, rather than keeping the best young talent bogged down on parks pitches or with no more opportunity to succeed than can be expressed at an ASPTT, perhaps through the medium of jazz dance.

Source: Daily_Mail