Source: Telegraph
John Terry's unclear Chelsea future raises player loyalty debate
Yes
Rafa Benitez's outburst that Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano 'owe Liverpool their loyalty' will have struck a chord with fans of all clubs and creeds. Even at the very biggest clubs, the excitement of the transfer window is tempered by fear that one or more of your side's best players will have their heads turned by a suitor offering more money, better weather or the chance to fulfil a childhood dream.
The experience of Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo proves that no club is immune. Even Chelsea are fretting over whether John Terry, a man who has spent a decade portraying himself as Mr Stamford Bridge, will ditch their Champions League bid for the riches on offer at Manchester City.
The players hold all the cards. Few, if any, managers are prepared to risk keeping hold of an unsettled player.
Encouraged by their agents and their wallets, players are able to dictate their own futures, throwing clubs' plans into disarray.
Yet, in all those cases, fans and manager alike have the right to demand a certain fidelity. Liverpool made Alonso as United made Ronaldo; Mascherano was rescued from the scrapheap at West Ham and Chelsea stood by Terry in light of personal troubles early in his career. None of them are, or were, paid badly. Even Mascherano, who has perhaps the biggest right to a salary review, is thought to earn at least £2.5 million a year.
The argument that foreign players do not settle well here is irrelevant. They do not, to any great extent, live in 'England' as we understand it. Their families live in an exclusive world where their every want is catered for. When most people emigrate, it's because the hospitals are dirty, the trains too expensive and city centres unpleasant on Friday nights. These are not concerns for footballers. True, the weather may not be to their tastes, but that should be a small price to repay clubs for their time, effort and trust.
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NO
Footballers are employees. If someone offered you a massive salary hike, tax breaks and greater prestige at either an exciting start-up company or one of your industry's great names, what would you do?
Most of us would take it. No matter how much you enjoy your job, or like your colleagues, all employees have complaints about their workplace, and footballers are no different. Sometimes they yearn for a change of scenery, or a new challenge, and they are as entitled to that as anyone.
There is a perception that all transfers are driven by players eager to boost their earnings and agents desperate for their ten per cent, but often this is not the case. Clubs sell players against their wishes all the time, because they have become surplus to requirements or they need to raise funds for the endless transfer merry-go-round. Loyalty is not a one way street.
Alonso is a case in point. Benitez tried to sell him last summer to raise funds for Gareth Barry and their relationship is believed to have soured as a result. His excellent form last season could be taken as a response to his manager, evidence of a player desperate to prove him wrong. He has done that, but the initial slight cannot be mended. Surely if your boss had tried to engineer your dismissal, their right to object if you moved companies at a later date would be forfeit?
More importantly, though, the Premier League's reliance on foreigners was always likely to engender such fluidity in the market. Growing up, most South Americans and continental Europeans dream of playing for Barcelona and Real Madrid, Milan and Juventus, not Liverpool and Chelsea, and our clubs will lack that sentimental appeal until the Premier League can achieve the same primacy in Buenos Aires as it does in Bahrain. Footballers owe their own ambitions, their own childhood aspirations, a debt of loyalty, too.
