By Leigh Sanders
With money spiralling out on control in football over the last decade one troubling trend has become all too prominent in transfer dealings which again has shut out fans and made their clubs unaccountable to the people who pay all the wages through ticket prices and merchandise sales.
Alongside the shocking fees now paid to agents in order to obtain a player’s signature is the fact that so many transfer fees appear alongside the ‘undisclosed’ moniker.
Another British transfer window ground to a close yesterday and although it didn’t have the usual excitement that recent years have provided with the last minute coups of Robinho by Manchester City and Dimitar Berbatov by rivals United there were some big deals done.
Out of these, Franco Di Santo (Chelsea to Wigan), Paul Konchesky (Fulham to Liverpool), Robinho (Manchester City to AC Milan) and Marc Wilson (Portsmouth to Stoke City) were all big-name deals where the actual fee involved wasn’t announced.
Only Asamoah Gyan’s £13m move from French club Rennes to Sunderland was given a concrete fee and Spurs coach Harry Redknapp has also admitted that if Spurs managed to push the transfer of Real Madrid midfielder Rafael van der Vaart through in time then that would involve a fee of around £8m.
In total, of the roughly 65 transfer dealings yesterday and the 32 done over bank holiday weekend, the transfer fee was only given in 16 of them. This, to me, is shocking.
What is the reasoning behind this? Are football clubs really that scared of letting their fans know just how much they are spending? The selling club may not want the fans to know how much of a loss they are taking on that flopped star who didn’t quite live up to their billing. Or the buying club may not want to let on how much of a gamble they’ve taken on the ageing winger with the dodgy knee.
Whatever the thinking behind this the powers that be really need to begin enforcing rules that make clubs more transparent again and allow financially troubled clubs to be identified a lot quicker than presently. We don’t want a repeat of the Leeds United/Southend United/Portsmouth/Cardiff City sagas and the fans deserve to be in the know over these issues.
Unfortunately I see no real change coming anytime soon with the FA and Premier Leagues seemingly interested in other issues but hopefully (if that is the right word) as more clubs move closer to the abyss somebody in the governing bodies will wake up and see what is going on here.
Otherwise, unaccountable men will continue to squander unaccountable fortunes and rip off the hard-working fans whose money is so religiously spent funding these imbeciles’ spending habits
