Crises are conducive to questioning. The one caused by the coronavirus pandemic is disrupting the economy as a whole. Football, an industry in its own right, is no exception. While it is stationary, the model it has been built on for years is being roughed up. The world has decided to question some of its actors on the management of the current crisis, what it reveals, how to get out of it and, perhaps, the changes to be made. Between resignation and hope, Philippe Piat continues to denounce the current transfer system, which he says clubs use to reduce players to the rank of" Financial assets ". 77-year-old former striker has presided for half a century now the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP), the French players' union. A responsibility to which is added its mandate to the FIFPro presidency, the International Federation of Professional Football Associations.
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Monday April 6, on BeIN Sports, you mentioned the possibility of a 22-club French championship instead of 20 for next season, in order to avoid the demotion of two clubs if the current season is not resumed. More generally, what could be the impact of the coronavirus on the world football organization?
I hope this pandemic will speed up discussions to lead to a drastic reform of the transfer system. Discussions are already underway with FIFA (In February, the International Football Federation already announced the establishment, from next July, of a fund of 14.6 million euros to help the players in the event of unpaid wages). But these discussions do not go far enough. We still go over the problems linked to the financial bubble which depends on the transfer system.
What problems in particular?
If some players have high salaries, it is not necessarily because the clubs want them to play, but because they want to build financial assets. This is the number 1 danger in football. These employment contracts fuel the “ trading players ", that is to say the sale of players, which becomes an essential element and unbalances club budgets. As now the club budgets are abnormally based on this, this sale also leads to salary inflation.
How is the mechanism explained?
To be able to achieve a miraculous added value in the sale of a player, clubs are obliged to substantially increase the wages of players so that the latter agree to extend their contract and thus to be under contract at the time of the transaction.
