July 2011. London. As a long, football-less summer shelters from the warm rain, we find scattered across the nation's capital four successful, cosmopolitan twentysomethings, virile and gifted young men, hungry in the pursuit of happiness.
Cesc, 24, is the titular star of our show. By day he leads a respected Islington-based performance troupe, but by night yearns for his Catalan homeland. Despite his tender age, Cesc has been shouldering huge responsibility as his employees fail to meet their targets year upon year. His once-adoring public are growing doubtful of his commitment to the cause. Tellingly, so is he.
A few miles away in a Tottenham coffee shop sits Luka, the creative force behind Hotspur Productions, an up-and-coming business owned by a savvy investor and managed by a shrill Cockney, with whom Luka enjoyed a top, top relationship until recently. Over the past few weeks Luka has let it be known that he sees his future away from Hotspur Productions, not least because the local coffee is quite frankly piss-poor.
Like Cesc, Samir – a Frenchman by trade – appreciates the finer things in life, educated in the ways of life by a respected artisan tutor. He currently finds himself slumming it in a rented Asburton Grove living space as lofty as the ideas taught within. Samir creates tirelessly, but craves the tangible rewards he feels his avant-garde gifts surely merit.
Meanwhile, lying prone on a masseur’s table somewhere in Shepherd's Bush, Adel has troubles of his own. A few years ago he had a shot at the big time, but fame proved a saucy seductress and the myriad temptations of the city – the glitz and the glitterati and the Ledley King guest lists – saw his focus flounder and in a blink he was just another could've-been, knocked back down the career ladder. Adel dreams of Europe, of Paris in the spring. His boss, Neil, doesn't approve of this sort of thing at all.
While their backstories may differ, it is the here-and-now which ties these men together. Their shared dream is one of ambition, a desire to achieve and to be recognised. Whilst their lives aren't exactly barren, none of the four are truly contented; merely satisfied. One thing these glowing young ruffians have in common is a determination to exercise power over their employers, to drive forth their personal aspirations. But the institutions which nurtured their talent, which helped them become what they are today, will be the ones left behind.
Seeing all this, I couldn't help but wonder – isn't it about time clubs took the power back?
As I sit and ponder the current transfer whirlwind, I'm frantically scanning my Budweiser-stained memory-hole to recall the last time a major transfer went through strictly on the selling club’s terms. I'm coming up rather blank.
When Jean-Marc Bosman donned a pair of shackles to demonstrate (rather heavy-handedly, but that's footballers for you) the perceived unfairness of remaining bound to a club even after a contract had expired, what resulted was a legal landmark which irreversibly re-stitched the fabric of the game. And while this outcome blessed footballers with hitherto unseen freedom of movement, it also came at a time when the game's finances were starting to swell lasciviously. Sensing that the moment was right to claim their own piece of the pie, competitors at all levels did the one thing that made any sense at all: they got better agents.
Not that any of this is even news. Agents and players; players and agents – we all know the score when it comes to transfers. Frankly, imagining any major deal being concluded via “the proper channels” any more seems so naive as to render the very idea itself almost meaningless. But in notable regard to the foursome detailed above, how did players still duty bound to perform for their clubs become so fearlessly empowered? In classic Lloyd Grossman style, let's look at the evidence:
Most obviously, there's the Champions League, the Holy Grail of the club game. It's where every player wants to be. Such is the exuberant media coverage it's given, and the prestige now attached to winning it (arguably overshadowing even the World Cup), it seems that if you're not there then you're no-one.
But what about the likes of Fabregas and Nasri who are already there? Their power comes from within, flexed from a position of superiority, understanding that their God-given kicking ability is so good that any mention of moving onwards and upwards sends rival chief execs scrabbling for the expense account card, while the matchday room staff scours the sofas for lost pennies. Cesc and Samir don’t just want to be in the thing; they want to win it.
The key here is simple, dumb ambition. When a player cites it, it's because they believe – know, even – that their current employer can't match it, financially or otherwise. What's more, they'll never be able to until they break into the elite. Which they won't do without the very best players, and so begins a self-perpetuating cycle that would make even a Fleet Street editor's head spin.
On a sliding scale of “bum” to “Apprentice winner”, you'd ideally want your own favourite player's ambition levels to be hovering somewhere around the Carrie Bradshaw mark. They're driven, sure, but not enough to turn their back on their friends, no matter how many promises of Manolo Blahniks and weekends in The Hamptons Mr Big might be teasing down the phone from his waterbed on the Lower East Side. Indeed, if Sex and the City has taught us anything, it's that ambition and loyalty needn't be mutually exclusive. Your average footballer clearly isn't a fan.
So how to combat player power? Maybe clubs need to fight fire with fire and take a more uncompromising approach to contract negotiations. “A five year deal? Sure, all yours. A weekly pay packet equivalent to the GDP of Fiji? No problem – here, use my pen. Just one thing though – walk away from us before we're good and ready, and you'll invoke our new 'branding' clause, which allows the kit man to scald the word 'JUDAS' onto your forehead, broadcast live from the centre circle, before the last home game of the season. See how that plays down at Chinawhite.”
Not that ambition is intrinsically a bad thing. Where would the world be without it? I'd be writing this in quill and ink for starters, while the 'laptop' forever remained the fevered dream of some misunderstood visionary who would invent it tomorrow if he could only tear himself away from E4's Frasier marathon. For better or worse, players now own the power and clubs can but throw money at the issue.
Cesc, Luka, Samir and Adel know all this because they're modern men, wise to the times in which they live. For them the future is ripe with opportunity – each new club merely another step on the road to perfection; each career choice a cocktail with a silly name.
Like the city, football is a playboy-populated, dog-eat-dog world all of its own. There’s triumph to be found, but at what cost? Sadly for clubs, the power they want back may already have skipped town.
~ Matt
