Why Should Footballers Show Loyalty?

Whenever a player decides to leave a club for a higher pay deal at another club, fans always label them a ‘greedy, money-grabber’, who should have shown more loyalty to his current club. The latest big transfer of Fernando Torres from Liverpool to Chelsea is a prime example.


At Liverpool, it is believed that Fernando Torres was earning in the region of £110k per week. A large sum of money, but now he has made the move down south to Chelsea, he has increased that dramatically to an enormous £175k per week.

The response of former Liverpool striker John Aldridge today sums up the often-taken view of many people.

“Torres is simply a mercenary who has gone for a huge pay rise. Liverpool fans stuck by him this season. They made excuses for his poor performances, about his injuries still affecting him. But all the time Torres appeared to be taking the club and the fans for a ride.

“Once he had put in a transfer request Liverpool were right to let him go. There's no point keeping someone who doesn't want to be there. Maybe Liverpool are better off without him.”

The first point to make is that he then goes on to praise Andy Carroll and says that he is the right type of player for Liverpool and could give a lot more than Torres did. However, surely the same argument could be made about Andy Carroll as he made for Torres.

Carroll has said in the past that he is happy at Newcastle, but when it came to it, he was happy to make the move to Liverpool where he has over doubled his wages. He put in a transfer request when push came to shove. Yet, Torres is a mercenary whereas Carroll is progressing his career.

In his entire career at club level, Fernando Torres has only ever won one trophy – the Spanish Segunda Division back in 2001/02. For a player of his calibre, it is a fair desire to want to challenge for trophies and only the most deluded of Liverpool fans will claim that he would be more likely to win trophies had he stayed.


Even ignoring the ambition part of it, why should a player show loyalty to their club? Unless they have an actual link to the club, then at the heart of it, the club is merely an employer.

Why should Fernando Torres show any loyalty to Liverpool FC? A career in football is fairly short in the big scheme of things, so you have to make the most of it while you can.

If a high-flying lawyer was offered the chance to double his salary by switching to a rival company, he would and nobody would even think that he should have shown loyalty to his previous employer. So why exactly should a footballer be any different?

Loyalty also works two ways. It is difficult to argue that players should show loyalty to a club when the clubs so often show no loyalty toward the players. Liverpool showed little loyalty to the likes of Paul Konchesky, Albert Riera, Ryan Babel or Alberto Aquilani in recent months, shifting them onto other clubs because they weren’t in the club’s plans anymore.

If the club will show so little loyalty to players, then it is difficult to argue that the players should show any great loyalty in return. You are required to be loyal to your club, but only if you are able. They will certainly not be loyal to you when you are not able.

It is interesting to hear this from the wife of former Cameroon international footballer, Lucien Mettomo. She described how she had been shipped out to a dozen cities over a few years with no control over where she lives or how long she will live there.


People look at the likes of Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard as being role models for being one-club men throughout their careers. Further afield, we see the likes of Paolo Maldini at AC Milan, Iker Casillas at Real Madrid and Francesco Totti at Roma. All players who have spent their whole career at the same club.

These players have a close affinity with the clubs, having come through their academies, and in most cases, being supporters of the club since they were young. However, there is also a common theme amongst those players. They are all playing at the top clubs in the world.

Do people seriously think that if Paul Scholes had been at his home-town club, Oldham, he would have shown the same loyalty? Of course he wouldn’t. He is a top player and wants to win trophies and succeed. To do this, you need to play for the top clubs.

For a top quality player, the only time they will show loyalty is if they have an affinity with the club and are already at a top club. But then, can we really call it loyalty? Could they really find a better deal and be more likely to win trophies elsewhere? Or are they just already at the peak of their chosen profession?


In the end, fans have a great loyalty to their own club. They automatically assume that the players at the club should show the same loyalty. But offer almost any of those fans the opportunity to switch jobs in exchange for doubling their salary and I can guarantee that 99.9% of them would jump at the chance.

For professional footballers, football is their job and the club is their employer. There is no more loyalty from them than from any other professional to their employer. So we should not expect them to show any great loyalty to their club.

Could Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll mark the end of the bubble in football and can Chelsea now satisfy UEFA's new regulations?

In one incredible day, three Premiership clubs turned what had been a relatively quiet transfer window on its head. With over £130m spent on new players in the space of around two hours between 9pm and 11pm, it delivered a hammer blow to the argument that an era of austerity and financial management was beginning to edge into football in England.

With the upcoming implementation of the new UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations at the beginning of the 2011/12 season, it was believed that clubs were beginning to prepare for them by curbing their spending and cutting large earners from their wage bill. Instead, it seems to have served to create the most incredible and volatile transfer window in history.


The deal to bring Fernando Torres to Chelsea from Liverpool was in the region of £50m and makes him one of the most expensive footballers in history. Whether or not it can be argued that there is some value in that deal, it is an incredible amount of money. If we add in the signing of David Luiz from Benfica, Chelsea splashed out almost £75m in the space of about 30 minutes late on Monday night. All this came only hours after the club announced losses of £70.9m for the previous season.

And if the Torres deal seemed overly extravagant, the £35m deal to bring Andy Carroll to Liverpool from Newcastle is surely the most overpriced transfer in history. He cost well over twice what Newcastle paid to sign Alan Shearer fifteen years ago. Almost £10m more than Wayne Rooney cost. You could have signed arguably the best striker on the planet – David Villa – and had a couple of million left over.

It is crazy that the British record transfer is for a player with only 80 senior matches under his belt and with only one international appearance to his name. Indeed, he cost more millions than he has scored goals in his entire career since making his senior debut five years ago.


However, Liverpool are hardly a club to worry about in this situation. Despite spending over £58m on new strikers in one day, when you factor in the sales of Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel, they have a net spend of only £1m. Whilst the fees that they have been paying are over-inflated and simply obscene, financially they have spent almost nothing.

Chelsea are the club that are under most scrutiny today. £75m spent despite announcing huge losses seems almost unthinkable to the average person. Chairman Bruce Buck announced recently that the club were on course to meet the regulations once they are implemented.

The club slashed the wage bill by around £20m in the summer by selling and releasing the likes of Deco, Joe Cole, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack and Juliano Belletti, but given that Fernando Torres is on a reported £175k per week, that increases the wage bill by over £9m per year.


We can assume that David Luiz must be on fairly decent wages. If we conservatively assume that he is on around £60k per week, which is likely to be on the low side given that he is a Brazilian international signed for over £20m, we can add another £3m to the total.

That means that the two new signings have increased the wage bill by a minimum of £13m. If we include the wages from their only summer signing, Ramires, who is earning a reported £4m per year, this takes it to £17m. In other words, they have almost completely cancelled out the savings they made in the summer.

So, where is the savings likely to come from? Under the new regulations, injections of money from owners will be limited to €15m per year (around £12.8m). So we can write off that much from the deficit, making it a far more manageable £58.1m to cover.


Success naturally leads to more money – it is a general rule of not only football, but business in general. However, last season Chelsea won the double. So realistically, no further domestic success would be possible, and to budget on achieving that feat every year would be highly unrealistic.

They only reached the last 16 of the Champions League, which would have led to a large fall in revenue, given that they have become accustomed to reaching the semi-finals at least in recent seasons. The loss of two home games, plus the additional revenue that comes from success in this competition would potential help to cancel out some of the losses, but relying on continued success in this competition is a risky proposition.

Finishing in the top four of the Premiership is an absolute minimum for Chelsea to even think about meeting these new regulations. Without the Champions League and the money that comes with it, Chelsea would be in severe problems.

However, another problem they will now face is how the new regulations deal with player transfers. Chelsea cannot simply write off the spending from this transfer window as a simple lump sum payment now. Rather, they must amortise the fee over the course of the player’s contract.

Therefore, given that both Fernando Torres and David Luiz have signed five year contracts, the transfer fee would be split evenly over the period of the contract. In other words, they must mark down a cost of £15m per year for the next five years for these transfers.


This adds another £15m each year that Chelsea must try and cover in order to break even and fulfil UEFA’s new regulations.

Chelsea are hoping that they have cut the deficit by recent changes, including having increased ticket prices by over 10% over the summer, reduced bonus payments for the players, a new deal with Adidas that will increase sponsorship payments from around £10m per season to around £20m per season, and increased income from TV revenue.

However, the bright point for Chelsea is the question of whether UEFA will actually stringently enforce the regulations. Currently, the likes of Chelsea, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Barcelona would all fail under the regulations. Would UEFA really ban them from European competition? Would they have a Champions League without a number of the biggest names?


Even if they do enforce it, there are a number of caveats built in. For the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons combined, clubs can overspend by €45m so long as it is covered by an injection of equity from the club’s owner. For the next three year period, they can overspend by another combined €45m, then €30m for the next three years, then €15m, and only then must clubs actually break even.

In other words, clubs do not actually have to break even for another 14 years. They can continue to make losses, albeit steadily reducing losses all the way until 2025. And to add to this, if clubs can show that they are heading in the right direction and moving toward breaking even, UEFA would reduce the sanctions.

As far as I can tell, that is a major get-out-of-jail card. For example, if Manchester City replicate last year’s losses of £121m in the first year of the new regulations, but cut this to a mere £110m in the second year, they could avoid being banned from Europe because they have cut their losses and are moving in the right direction. No matter that they have lost a nine-figure amount – they are trying hard.


The new regulations are a good thing in so far as they look to curb the spending in football which have risen to even more unbelievable levels in an incredible couple of hours on deadline day. However, there are other problems with them that will be explored at a later date.

Chelsea face a major battle to meet these regulations and their long-term plan of breaking even by 2010 has clearly failed spectacularly. Whether they can continue to look to cut their costs without sacrificing success on the field is unknown, but they have to try to fulfil the new requirements or risk the wrath of UEFA and Michel Platini.

Again, whether he would follow through with his threats remains to be seen, but can the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City take that risk. Surely not, which means that the 31st January 2011 could be marked down as the final peak in the ridiculous bubble that has been seen in football over the past decade.

An Alternative Relegation System

One only needs to look around the grounds at the end of the season to see the devastating effect that relegation can have on a club, their players, and more importantly, their fans. For many, relegation would rank as one of their darkest moments – it is almost treated with the same grief as a death in the family.


In Argentina, they have a curious style of determining the teams that get relegated from the top division. It is decided on an average points system, where the total number of points that a team has acquired over the past three seasons is averaged out. The teams are then ranked in order of these average points, and the bottom three are relegated. If a team has not been in the division for three years, then their points total is simply divided by the number of seasons that they have been in the division.

While this system is generally perceived to be a mechanism to protect the big teams if they have one particularly bad season, it would be an interesting test to see what impact this might have had on the Premiership since its inception. Would former top division regulars such as Leeds, Newcastle, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton have been saved by this new system? Would we have seen the same teams relegated, or have certain teams benefitted from the occasional strong season to boost their average?

We will look season-by-season to determine how different the Premiership landscape would have looked if it had decided to use this new method of determining relegation:

2009/10

Hull City were unable to turn their poor form from the previous season around, and they were joined by Burnley and Portsmouth, who had suffered major financial problems, going into administration in February.

However, recent good performances would have saved Portsmouth, even with the points deduction, seeing Wolves joining Hull and Burnley in the Championship. If investors knew that Portsmouth would be remaining in the Premiership, might somebody have moved in already to save the struggling club?

2008/09

The demise of Newcastle United was the major story of the 2008/09 season. Major infighting, constant managerial changes and a lack of real quality saw the famous club suffer the ignominy of relegation to the Championship. They were joined by north-east rivals Middlesbrough and West Brom.

Intriguingly, under the alternative system, both Newcastle and Middlesbrough would have stayed in the Premiership, and their bitter north-east rivals, Sunderland, would have taken their place in the Championship, along with recently promoted Hull City.


2007/08

Reading suffered severe second season syndrome, having just missed out on a UEFA Cup place in their first season at the top level. They were joined by Birmingham and the woeful Derby County side, who secured the lowest ever total of points in the top division.

Reading’s previous heroics would have been enough to save them, and would have seen Sunderland drop down into the Championship instead. Maybe Reading would have been able to hang on to some of their young stars, and Sunderland may have parted ways with Roy Keane and would almost certainly not have signed the likes of Kieran Richardson, Kenwyne Jones and Craig Gordon.

2006/07

This season saw Sheffield United relegated, following West Ham’s dramatic late recovery, led by the ineligible Carlos Tevez. The matter would eventually go to the courts, where Sheffield United were awarded compensation, but this mattered little to them at that stage. Charlton and Watford joined them in the Championship.

Under the Argentinean system, the whole Carlos Tevez affair would have been less relevant, since Sheffield United would have been relegated anyway. Even if West Ham had gained less points, Charlton had a higher average than Sheffield United, so would have stayed up instead.


2005/06

Birmingham City joined West Brom and Sunderland in losing their Premiership place in this season. Portsmouth had looked likely to go down, but a miraculous escape, masterminded by the returning Harry Redknapp saved them.

Portsmouth would not have been so lucky under the average points system. Even their dramatic late recovery would not have been enough, and they would have gone down in place of Birmingham. Considering they went on to solidify their position in the top flight, winning the FA Cup only two years later, and suffering crippling debt as a result, would things have been different had they gone down this season?

2004/05

Southampton were the major casualties in the 2004/05 season. They had been in the top flight since 1978, famously pulling off a number of great escapes over the years. However, they finally succumbed to relegation by two points. They were joined by Crystal Palace and Norwich.

West Brom were the lucky team to survive. They would have gone down at the expense of Southampton had the Argentinean system been in place. Southampton suffered major financial difficulties as a result of relegation, dropping all the way to League 1, experiencing numerous points deductions en-route.

2003/04

Leicester and Wolves were both relegated in 2004, but their demise was overshadowed by the relegation of Leeds United. Only three years before, they had been playing in the Champions League, but missing out on 4th spot in the 2001/02 season had led to the onset of major financial problems, leading to the departure of a number of major players.

They would have been saved by the alternative system, although whether they would have survived much longer in the Premiership is another question. However, their subsequent financial demise may not have been as dramatic as it turned out to be. Interestingly, Portsmouth would have been the unlucky team to replace them, despite finishing 13th in their first season in the top flight.

2002/03

West Ham were deemed to be too good to go down, but this was not the case. A poor season led to their relegation from the Premiership, where they were joined by West Brom and Sunderland.

The Hammers would have comfortably retained their place in the top flight following their 7th placed finish the previous season. Bolton would once again have been the team to take their place in the lower divisions. Following their relegation, the likes of Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Glen Johnson and Jermain Defoe all departed the club. They may have re-established themselves as a solid Premiership club at the expense of others had they been able to stay in the top flight.

2001/02

This season saw UEFA Cup participants, Ipswich Town, suffering a major case of second season syndrome, collapsing to a poor 18th placed finish. They were joined by long-term top division sides Derby County and Leicester City.

Under the average points system, Ipswich’s solid showing the previous season would have been enough to save them, whilst newly-promoted Bolton Wanderers would have taken their place. Considering Bolton went on to solidify their Premiership status, even qualifying for the UEFA Cup, how different things might have been for Bolton and Sam Allardyce had the side not remained in the Premiership in 2002.

2000/01

Manchester City, Coventry and Bradford suffered relegation in this season. Having flirted with relegation the previous season, Bradford simply did not have the quality to survive in the division. Coventry City had been a fixture in the Premiership since its inception, but this season saw the culmination of a long decline in their performances.

All three sides would have been relegated under the alternative system.

1999/00

The turn of the millennium saw two former regulars in the top flight fall away, never to be seen again. Wimbledon and Sheffield Wednesday had been established members of the top flight in recent years, but were unable to retain their places. They were joined by Watford.

The Argentinean system would not have been enough to save Wimbledon, who had been flirting with relegation for several years. However, Sheffield Wednesday would have stayed up at the expense of Bradford. Their relegation led to severe financial problems and they have recently returned to League 1 – would things have been different had they stayed in the top flight?

1998/99

Blackburn Rovers were the major casualty of the 1998/99 season, suffering the heartbreak of relegation only five years after being crowned champions of England. They were joined by newly-promoted Charlton and Nottingham Forest.

Everton would have been the unfortunately club to drop out of the Premiership, ending their record-breaking 96 year stay in the top division of English football. Everton have since re-established themselves as one of the major forces in the Premiership, having been one of the few to break the monopoly on the Champions League, but how different might their fortunes have been had they been relegated in 1999.

1997/98

This was the first season of the Premiership where all three promoted clubs immediately dropped back down to the Championship. Bolton, Barnsley and Crystal Palace were all unable to make the step up to the big time.

For the first time, the alternative system would have made no difference whatsoever regarding the teams that fell out of the Premiership.

1996/97

Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest were the unlucky teams to suffer relegation in the 1996/97 season. Once again, Nottingham Forest were the shock team to go down, having comfortably finished in the top half in recent seasons. A poor start had given them little hope, and despite a late revival led by player-manager Stuart Pearce, they finished bottom.

They would have survived under the average points method, being replaced by Leicester City, who would have been relegated, despite a 9th placed finish and victory in the Carling Cup. Had they been relegated, would Martin O’Neill have remained at the club or would the highly-talented Northern Irishman have moved on to a bigger job.


1995/96

The 1995/96 season saw Manchester City, QPR and Bolton fall out of the league. QPR had been a strong upper-half Premiership team up until this season, where the wheels really came off, after selling club record goal-scorer Les Ferdinand the previous summer.

As expected, QPR’s previous strong showings would have excused them this one failing, where they would have been replaced by Middlesbrough. QPR have never returned to the top flight since, having gone through a large number of managers, and even falling down to the third tier of English football.

1994/95

This season saw four teams relegated as the Premiership downsized from 22 teams to 20. The unlucky four were Crystal Palace, Norwich, Ipswich and Leicester City. This had been a dramatic fall from grace for Norwich, who had finished 3rd in the inaugural season of the Premiership, and having beaten Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup the previous year.

Under the Argentinean system, their previous success would have saved Norwich City, who would have retained their place in the Premiership at the expense of Southampton. However, Southampton remained in the top flight, hanging on to star player, Matt Le Tissier, and Norwich would fall into the lower divisions and it would be almost 10 years until they returned to the promised land. This relegation led to the departure of Chris Sutton to newly-crowned champions, Blackburn Rovers.

1993/94

Sheffield United, Oldham, and recently promoted Swindon Town were the teams to go down in the 1993/94 season. While Oldham had been regularly flirting with relegation since their promotion three years earlier, Sheffield United had been fixtures in mid-table for the past couple of seasons.

Indeed, under the other system, Sheffield United would have retained their place in the Premiership and would have been replaced by recently promoted West Ham, who actually finished comfortably in mid-table. However, their poor showing two seasons previously would have dragged their total down. Considering West Ham went on to solidify their position in the Premiership, how different their fortunes might have been had they gone down to the old Division 1?

1992/93

The first season of the new Premiership era saw Crystal Palace, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest fail to retain their places in the top division. Nottingham Forest were a big name to go down, having been a fixture of the top flight for 16 years, winning 7 trophies during that period. It was this relegation that led to the end of the legendary Brian Clough’s tenure at the club.

However, had we used the Argentinean system, both Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest would have been saved, with Southampton and Coventry joining Middlesbrough in relegation. Who knows whether Brian Clough might have stayed around longer had they stayed in the top flight?

Conclusion

As we can see, the Premiership landscape might have been very different had they decided to adopt this alternative style of relegation. The older, more traditional clubs would have been saved, and may have gone on to re-establish their position in the top division. On the other hand, the smaller, less fashionable clubs would not have been given the opportunity to solidify their position – the likes of Bolton and Portsmouth would all have been relegated before having the opportunity to concrete their position in the division.

Personally, I think it would be a terrible decision were the Premiership to adopt this system. It gives an enormous boost to the established sides, giving them the leeway to slip up occasionally. However, the newly promoted sides would have to significantly perform above average to simply stay in the division in their first season. This season is an example of this – Wolves have done magnificently to finish 8 points clear of relegation in 15th place, but would have been relegated simply due to Portsmouth, Wigan and West Ham’s previous good performances. This would simply preserve the position of the elite, although one might argue that it would boost the quality of the league in the long term.