If one ever doubted the fact that money and wealth dictates the game of football, Neymar’s transfer to Paris Saint Germain last week has confirmed this. The total deal, which includes fees and wages, is set to hover around the £450 million mark, making it football’s biggest and craziest transaction by far.
Part of the deal will see a reported £38 million being shared among Neymar’s father, Neymar’s agent, Pini Zahavi, and others who were involved in facilitating the transfer of the century, small change to a footballer who will be reportedly earning wages in the region of £520,000 a week.
In 2009, the Union of European Football Associations introduced financial fair play regulations (FFP) with the main goal being to prevent professional football clubs from spending more than they earn.
On face value, such rules were meant to act as a deterrent to clubs from overspending in the pursuit of success, with clubs found guilty of breaching such rules possibly facing fines, player transfer prohibitions and even potentially disqualification from European competitions.
Owing to a barrage of criticism, Uefa had to scale down the rules and penalties of the FFP. However, despite this, there are still those who criticise the scope of such rules because, in their opinion, they act in favour of larger clubs that earn more than the lower-income ones.
Thus, such rules essentially prevent a vast majority of clubs from being in a financial position of bidding for world-star footballers whose value and fees have risen astronomically over the years.
One major problem that haunts clubs (now more than ever) concerns the buyout clauses inserted in players’ contracts. To name a few, Neymar’s clause reportedly mentions the sum of £198 million while Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale’s is rumoured to be in the region of £75 million.
With Uefa already confirming it will look into the Neymar deal, one hopes that salary caps will soon be on its agenda
Such clauses are inserted upon the players’ insistence and clubs accept them thinking that nobody would ever dream of triggering them. That was until PSG came knocking on Barcelona’s door with an unlimited supply of ‘Gulf’ money.
The problem lies in the fact that clubs are powerless and toothless when such buyout clauses are triggered, despite Barcelona initially being against such transfer with the alleged support of La Liga.
This is because, from a legal point of view, no rules exist stopping a club or national league association from preventing a buyout clause being triggered.
What was previously thought of being impossible has now happened, something which has surely sent club chairmen into panic as they had hoped their star players’ release clauses would not be triggered during transfer windows.
Since football transfer fees are now becoming ridiculous, calls for a salary cap to be introduced, on a similar level to those in the Rugby Union and the National Football League in America, have become louder.
Under such salary cap, a maximum amount a sports star plying his/her trade could earn would be set by the governing body with the aim of ensuring guaranteed fairness during the competition.
Such a salary cap would be adjusted on an annual basis to reflect the league’s revenues, as well as other social and economic factors.
With Uefa already confirming it will look into the Neymar deal, one hopes that salary caps will soon be on its agenda.
Astronomical transfer fees also bring into question the legal issue of whether they can be infringed.
The argument being made is that, by having a significant high transfer fee, one is eliminating the possibility of numerous clubs from even having a remote chance of making a bid for such player, thus not only infringing FFP rules but also European Union competition laws by restricting the clubs’ quest for star players.
In fact, Spanish league president Javier Tebas has already declared that a formal complaint concerning the Neymar deal will be made and if nothing happens further action will be taken in the Swiss and European courts.
Should such action be instituted and the complaint upheld, a can of worms would be opened since such a decision could then even be interpreted as being an intervention in the traditional autonomous operations of football clubs, national associations and the international sporting bodies themselves.
Besides being famously known for his on-field brilliance and for breaking the world record transfer fee, Neymar could also possibly make a name for himself for being the football player who led to the introduction of salary caps in Europe, possible drastic amendments to the FFP rules and, perhaps, also giving rise to a whole list of court decisions affecting the rules of sporting bodies across the world.
One thing is for sure, Neymar and his team of aides have pulled off what was previously thought to be impossible.
Robert Dingli, vice president of Swieqi United FC, is studying for a master’s in sports law at Nottingham Trent University.