Post by QPR Report on Sept 5, 2009 6:26:46 GMT
Guardian/Matt Scott
Chelsea facing legal threat over signing boy of 11• Amateur French club consider complaint to Fifa
• Blues adamant no rules were broken in move
Chelsea face a second legal threat over allegations of poaching young players, this time concerning the move of an 11-year-old to Stamford Bridge. ASPTT Marseille, the French club who saw Jérémy Boga switch to west London last October, are consulting lawyers over whether to make a fresh complaint to Fifa.
Following Fifa's imposition of a transfer ban until January 2011 over Chelsea's illegal recruitment of the teenage forward Gaël Kakuta from Lens, ASPTT Marseille will take legal advice on Tuesday to discuss the case of Boga, who had spent five years with the amateur team.
Robert Caturégli, the chairman of the Marseille club's football division, claims Chelsea pushed through the transfer by arranging accommodation and a car for the player's parents.
Caturégli alleges that Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux took an interest in Boga's development but that the youngster's father, who had previously split from his wife and moved to London, made contact with English clubs about the possible transfer.
Chelsea are understood to have been told that the child already intended to move to London to live with his father, who was said to be living within Chelsea's catchment area. The club do not consider they have broken any rules over the move. Since Boga was under the age of 12 there was no requirement for the club to seek international clearance.
"The player is so gifted the three biggest clubs in France wanted him," said Caturégli. "But Chelsea found a solution of taking the whole family: the mum, the two brothers and to keep them in a house in Wimbledon. The mum has a car to take the kids to school and to training or whatever. He was in our Under-12s team and we're just a youth development club. He didn't have a contract so we felt we couldn't go to Fifa.
"But if the family were getting back together they could have done so at Marseille and the boy has been taken to England at a very young age. It's sure that Chelsea didn't reunite the family for sentimental reasons. We're prisoners of these big clubs who purloin our players. Chelsea did not give us even one single football."
ASPTT will ask lawyers whether the circumstances of the move are in contravention of Fifa's Article 19, governing international transfers involving minors. That states: "International transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18," adding that a child may only register with a foreign club if "the player's parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football".
Chelsea, who are appealing against Fifa's Kakuta ruling, refused to comment. However, if Caturégli's claims are true, he would have the sympathy of Uefa's president, Michel Platini, who is a Fifa vice-president. "When you uproot from their home environment, when you make them emotionally disorientated, I call that child trafficking," said Platini in a speech to the European parliament in February.
Chelsea have long insisted that their policy for youth player recruitment is based around London, in accordance with Football Association regulations. Setting out his role as "a headhunter around the world" at a Leaders in Football conference last year, Chelsea's head of player recruitment, Frank Arnesen, explained self-imposed age limits on overseas acquisitions.
"London is our first aim for seven to 12-year-olds," said Arnesen. "At 12-14 we go a little bit further but still London, for 14-16 it's around the UK and at 16-18 it's the European Union. At 18-plus, it's the rest of the world."
Chelsea's captain, John Terry, yesterday spoke of his "shock" at the Fifa decision over Kakuta. "It was a big shock to me," said the England captain. "But the club have reiterated that I can't speak about it as they are appealing very strongly."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/05/chelsea-legal-threat-alleged-player-poaching
Guardian
Fifa cracks down on child transfers• 500,000 minors move clubs each year
• Platini wants ban on all transfers of players under 18
Matt Scott and Owen Gibson The Guardian, Saturday 5 Sept
For months, the Uefa president, Michel Platini, and his Fifa counterpart, Sepp Blatter, have been battling to prove their commitment to cracking down on the international trade in young footballers. Blatter said at the Fifa congress in the Bahamas this year: "It is our duty to the youth of the world to protect young players. We must do it together. Stop the slavery of these young players!"
Fifa has discovered that the market for the transfer of minors amounts to 500,000 children moving clubs every year. The world governing body was so shocked at the scale of the problem that it has taken steps to enforce its own rules rather than wait for the formal complaints of clubs. Proposals were voted through at its congress in May approving the setting up of a committee to scrutinise every international transfer for players aged under 18 years old.
The aim is to ensure Article 19 of the Fifa regulations is not being infringed. Jérôme Valcke, Fifa's general secretary, told the Guardian: "This is the chance to look at the offer a club is making to a family and to see if it is linked or indirectly linked to football and the value of the offer to the family."
As the legal pendulum has swung back to the clubs after a period when players appeared in the ascendant, Platini has continued to push for an outright ban on all transfers involving players under 18. But the European Union is opposed as the idea directly cuts across principles regarding the free movement of labour. As such, Fifa has tended towards a more pragmatic approach
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/05/uefa-fifa-child-footballer-transfers
Richard Williams/The Guardian
Child auctions expose incompetence of Premier League's academy systemSigning teenage stars from abroad highlights the big clubs' dismal attempts to produce home-grown talent
It is 10 years since Arsène Wenger spirited the 15-year-old Jérémie Aliadière out of France, prompting outrage and an investigation at the French national football centre at the Château Montjoye in Clairefontaine, where a trio of coaches were suspected of having tipped off the Arsenal manager.
One of those coaches, André Mérelle, summed up the qualities that had won the young centre-forward a place in the national Under-15 team. "Tall, slim, speedy, scores goals," Mérelle told me. "Sort of ... Van Basten."
For his £1.2m, Wenger acquired a player destined to score a record number of goals in the FA Youth Cup. Van Basten, however, Aliadière was not. He scored only once in 29 league appearances for Arsenal, 22 of them as a substitute, and various loan spells were followed in 2007 by a permanent move to Middlesbrough, where he remains, still scoring infrequently.
Lest it be thought, in the wake of the Gaël Kakuta affair, that English clubs are the only predators stalking Europe, it should be pointed out that the two clubs competing with Wenger for Aliadière's signature were Internazionale and Barcelona. Perhaps the boy would have met a similar fate at San Siro or Camp Nou. But it would be certainly interesting to know how his career might have developed had he stayed at Racing Club de Paris, where he played junior football, or accepted an offer to stay in France with FC Nantes.
Like Kakuta, Aliadière was a willing prey. But Noël le Graët, then president of the French league, could not contain his dismay. "His coaches, his teachers and his parents should ask themselves a few questions about the auction of a child of 15," he proclaimed. Not much has changed in the decade between l'affaire Aliadière and that of Kakuta, who was also 15 when approached by Chelsea. And if these two cases say a lot about the ability of the top Premier League clubs to impose their desires, it says even more about the incompetence of most of their academies.
With rare exceptions, English clubs in and around the top tier are making a costly mess of their duty to identify and develop indigenous talent. How much easier is it to send your scouts to a France Under-16 fixture, where a Kakuta or a Paul Pogba can be watched, their gifts already spotted and nurtured by coaches at clubs such as Lens and Le Havre? The hard part has already been done. All you have to do is sign a cheque and add another body to an already bloated squad.
The academy at Liverpool, who had 62 players on their books last season, has been a joke for years. The stream of talent that once flowed from Manchester United's recruitment policy has slowed to a trickle. And lurking behind the headlines, the most powerful indictment of Chelsea's recruitment policy is not the tapping-up of Kakuta but the length of the list of young players sent out on loan at the beginning of this season.
Eleven of them, aged between 18 and 21, are currently to be found wearing the shirts of other clubs. All but two are English and products of the club's academy. Most are presumably hoping to be recalled at the end of their loan period and given the chance to make their way into the first team. Precedent suggests that their ambitions are unlikely to be fulfilled.
This week Carlton Cole spoke of the effect of being sent out on loan from Stamford Bridge as a teenager after his ambitions were blunted by the arrival of a string of big-name strikers. "I didn't see the bigger picture," said Cole, who is now 25. "I didn't really take it seriously after that. I'd go on loan saying, 'It doesn't matter because I'll go back to Chelsea.'" Cole, who is in the England squad for tomorrow's match against Slovenia, came very close to joining the ranks of those who drift down through the leagues, losing their careers to a system distorted by money and the demand for instant success.
Clubs such as Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United will claim that they give their young players the best possible training and preparation for life as a professional footballer, wherever it may take them.
For many, however, the atmosphere of privilege is a snare and a delusion. They begin their careers in ideal surroundings, parking their first cars alongside the Audi Q7s and Bentley Continentals of the stars and enjoying the best medical attention. But when they are moved on, they discover that life outside the top half-dozen is much less comfortably cushioned. Not all have acquired the resilience needed to adapt to their new circumstances.
Chelsea are not alone in reacting to the economic crisis by reducing the number of players reporting daily to their five-star training facility. The lists of this summer's discards from Premier League clubs shows that the winnowing process has been even more vigorously enforced at Tottenham, where 10 home-produced players have gone out on loan and another 10 academy players have been released to find new clubs for themselves.
Rather than taking pride in the financial muscle that allows them to pluck schoolboys from France, Spain and Italy, English clubs should be ashamed of their own inefficiency.
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are right to attempt to ban transfers of players under the age of 18, not just to remove children from a distasteful process but to maintain the strength of the smaller clubs. Everyone will benefit. The minor club, receiving a higher transfer fee for a more mature 18-year-old. The big club, whose investment will be less of a risk. And the player himself, able to spend three years in a familiar and less pressurised environment before taking flight.
For all the scorn they attract in England, the presidents of Fifa and Uefa are attempting to do something for the long-term health of the players, the clubs, and the game as a whole. This week they made a robust and encouraging start.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/sep/04/chelsea-transfer-ban-gael-kakuta
Chelsea facing legal threat over signing boy of 11• Amateur French club consider complaint to Fifa
• Blues adamant no rules were broken in move
Chelsea face a second legal threat over allegations of poaching young players, this time concerning the move of an 11-year-old to Stamford Bridge. ASPTT Marseille, the French club who saw Jérémy Boga switch to west London last October, are consulting lawyers over whether to make a fresh complaint to Fifa.
Following Fifa's imposition of a transfer ban until January 2011 over Chelsea's illegal recruitment of the teenage forward Gaël Kakuta from Lens, ASPTT Marseille will take legal advice on Tuesday to discuss the case of Boga, who had spent five years with the amateur team.
Robert Caturégli, the chairman of the Marseille club's football division, claims Chelsea pushed through the transfer by arranging accommodation and a car for the player's parents.
Caturégli alleges that Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux took an interest in Boga's development but that the youngster's father, who had previously split from his wife and moved to London, made contact with English clubs about the possible transfer.
Chelsea are understood to have been told that the child already intended to move to London to live with his father, who was said to be living within Chelsea's catchment area. The club do not consider they have broken any rules over the move. Since Boga was under the age of 12 there was no requirement for the club to seek international clearance.
"The player is so gifted the three biggest clubs in France wanted him," said Caturégli. "But Chelsea found a solution of taking the whole family: the mum, the two brothers and to keep them in a house in Wimbledon. The mum has a car to take the kids to school and to training or whatever. He was in our Under-12s team and we're just a youth development club. He didn't have a contract so we felt we couldn't go to Fifa.
"But if the family were getting back together they could have done so at Marseille and the boy has been taken to England at a very young age. It's sure that Chelsea didn't reunite the family for sentimental reasons. We're prisoners of these big clubs who purloin our players. Chelsea did not give us even one single football."
ASPTT will ask lawyers whether the circumstances of the move are in contravention of Fifa's Article 19, governing international transfers involving minors. That states: "International transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18," adding that a child may only register with a foreign club if "the player's parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football".
Chelsea, who are appealing against Fifa's Kakuta ruling, refused to comment. However, if Caturégli's claims are true, he would have the sympathy of Uefa's president, Michel Platini, who is a Fifa vice-president. "When you uproot from their home environment, when you make them emotionally disorientated, I call that child trafficking," said Platini in a speech to the European parliament in February.
Chelsea have long insisted that their policy for youth player recruitment is based around London, in accordance with Football Association regulations. Setting out his role as "a headhunter around the world" at a Leaders in Football conference last year, Chelsea's head of player recruitment, Frank Arnesen, explained self-imposed age limits on overseas acquisitions.
"London is our first aim for seven to 12-year-olds," said Arnesen. "At 12-14 we go a little bit further but still London, for 14-16 it's around the UK and at 16-18 it's the European Union. At 18-plus, it's the rest of the world."
Chelsea's captain, John Terry, yesterday spoke of his "shock" at the Fifa decision over Kakuta. "It was a big shock to me," said the England captain. "But the club have reiterated that I can't speak about it as they are appealing very strongly."
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/05/chelsea-legal-threat-alleged-player-poaching
Guardian
Fifa cracks down on child transfers• 500,000 minors move clubs each year
• Platini wants ban on all transfers of players under 18
Matt Scott and Owen Gibson The Guardian, Saturday 5 Sept
For months, the Uefa president, Michel Platini, and his Fifa counterpart, Sepp Blatter, have been battling to prove their commitment to cracking down on the international trade in young footballers. Blatter said at the Fifa congress in the Bahamas this year: "It is our duty to the youth of the world to protect young players. We must do it together. Stop the slavery of these young players!"
Fifa has discovered that the market for the transfer of minors amounts to 500,000 children moving clubs every year. The world governing body was so shocked at the scale of the problem that it has taken steps to enforce its own rules rather than wait for the formal complaints of clubs. Proposals were voted through at its congress in May approving the setting up of a committee to scrutinise every international transfer for players aged under 18 years old.
The aim is to ensure Article 19 of the Fifa regulations is not being infringed. Jérôme Valcke, Fifa's general secretary, told the Guardian: "This is the chance to look at the offer a club is making to a family and to see if it is linked or indirectly linked to football and the value of the offer to the family."
As the legal pendulum has swung back to the clubs after a period when players appeared in the ascendant, Platini has continued to push for an outright ban on all transfers involving players under 18. But the European Union is opposed as the idea directly cuts across principles regarding the free movement of labour. As such, Fifa has tended towards a more pragmatic approach
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/05/uefa-fifa-child-footballer-transfers
Richard Williams/The Guardian
Child auctions expose incompetence of Premier League's academy systemSigning teenage stars from abroad highlights the big clubs' dismal attempts to produce home-grown talent
It is 10 years since Arsène Wenger spirited the 15-year-old Jérémie Aliadière out of France, prompting outrage and an investigation at the French national football centre at the Château Montjoye in Clairefontaine, where a trio of coaches were suspected of having tipped off the Arsenal manager.
One of those coaches, André Mérelle, summed up the qualities that had won the young centre-forward a place in the national Under-15 team. "Tall, slim, speedy, scores goals," Mérelle told me. "Sort of ... Van Basten."
For his £1.2m, Wenger acquired a player destined to score a record number of goals in the FA Youth Cup. Van Basten, however, Aliadière was not. He scored only once in 29 league appearances for Arsenal, 22 of them as a substitute, and various loan spells were followed in 2007 by a permanent move to Middlesbrough, where he remains, still scoring infrequently.
Lest it be thought, in the wake of the Gaël Kakuta affair, that English clubs are the only predators stalking Europe, it should be pointed out that the two clubs competing with Wenger for Aliadière's signature were Internazionale and Barcelona. Perhaps the boy would have met a similar fate at San Siro or Camp Nou. But it would be certainly interesting to know how his career might have developed had he stayed at Racing Club de Paris, where he played junior football, or accepted an offer to stay in France with FC Nantes.
Like Kakuta, Aliadière was a willing prey. But Noël le Graët, then president of the French league, could not contain his dismay. "His coaches, his teachers and his parents should ask themselves a few questions about the auction of a child of 15," he proclaimed. Not much has changed in the decade between l'affaire Aliadière and that of Kakuta, who was also 15 when approached by Chelsea. And if these two cases say a lot about the ability of the top Premier League clubs to impose their desires, it says even more about the incompetence of most of their academies.
With rare exceptions, English clubs in and around the top tier are making a costly mess of their duty to identify and develop indigenous talent. How much easier is it to send your scouts to a France Under-16 fixture, where a Kakuta or a Paul Pogba can be watched, their gifts already spotted and nurtured by coaches at clubs such as Lens and Le Havre? The hard part has already been done. All you have to do is sign a cheque and add another body to an already bloated squad.
The academy at Liverpool, who had 62 players on their books last season, has been a joke for years. The stream of talent that once flowed from Manchester United's recruitment policy has slowed to a trickle. And lurking behind the headlines, the most powerful indictment of Chelsea's recruitment policy is not the tapping-up of Kakuta but the length of the list of young players sent out on loan at the beginning of this season.
Eleven of them, aged between 18 and 21, are currently to be found wearing the shirts of other clubs. All but two are English and products of the club's academy. Most are presumably hoping to be recalled at the end of their loan period and given the chance to make their way into the first team. Precedent suggests that their ambitions are unlikely to be fulfilled.
This week Carlton Cole spoke of the effect of being sent out on loan from Stamford Bridge as a teenager after his ambitions were blunted by the arrival of a string of big-name strikers. "I didn't see the bigger picture," said Cole, who is now 25. "I didn't really take it seriously after that. I'd go on loan saying, 'It doesn't matter because I'll go back to Chelsea.'" Cole, who is in the England squad for tomorrow's match against Slovenia, came very close to joining the ranks of those who drift down through the leagues, losing their careers to a system distorted by money and the demand for instant success.
Clubs such as Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United will claim that they give their young players the best possible training and preparation for life as a professional footballer, wherever it may take them.
For many, however, the atmosphere of privilege is a snare and a delusion. They begin their careers in ideal surroundings, parking their first cars alongside the Audi Q7s and Bentley Continentals of the stars and enjoying the best medical attention. But when they are moved on, they discover that life outside the top half-dozen is much less comfortably cushioned. Not all have acquired the resilience needed to adapt to their new circumstances.
Chelsea are not alone in reacting to the economic crisis by reducing the number of players reporting daily to their five-star training facility. The lists of this summer's discards from Premier League clubs shows that the winnowing process has been even more vigorously enforced at Tottenham, where 10 home-produced players have gone out on loan and another 10 academy players have been released to find new clubs for themselves.
Rather than taking pride in the financial muscle that allows them to pluck schoolboys from France, Spain and Italy, English clubs should be ashamed of their own inefficiency.
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are right to attempt to ban transfers of players under the age of 18, not just to remove children from a distasteful process but to maintain the strength of the smaller clubs. Everyone will benefit. The minor club, receiving a higher transfer fee for a more mature 18-year-old. The big club, whose investment will be less of a risk. And the player himself, able to spend three years in a familiar and less pressurised environment before taking flight.
For all the scorn they attract in England, the presidents of Fifa and Uefa are attempting to do something for the long-term health of the players, the clubs, and the game as a whole. This week they made a robust and encouraging start.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/sep/04/chelsea-transfer-ban-gael-kakuta