Football: What Football?

[ljkeane]

6 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Crazy idea, but what if the players, whose contracts have run out decide to say: Nah, not putting my health at risk over this, and just don't sign the short term extensions.

They probably could if they wanted to. On the other hand the clubs probably wouldn't have much incentive to pay them their wages for the last couple of months if they did that.

Honestly though they're young men whose entire lives up to this point have probably revolved around playing football. I doubt there would be significant numbers of players refusing to play if it came down to it. People are still mostly turning up to decidedly shittier jobs than playing football professionally.

[baxus]

27 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

They probably could if they wanted to. On the other hand the clubs probably wouldn't have much incentive to pay them their wages for the last couple of months if they did that.

Other than that little thing called the contract? You are aware that a club refusing to pay the player for the last few months of his contract would be taken to court and not only would they have to pay the player what they owed him, with interest, but they'd have such a PR disaster on their hands that they'd probably have trouble signing players for a while. Not to mention that the players associations would breathe down their necks, and probably the League and the FA.

[ljkeane]

1 minute ago, baxus said:

Other than that little thing called the contract?

You mean the contract were the players get paid for turning up to work? I'd say clubs probably have a reasonably sound basis to make players redundant in the current situation. Obviously players are assets so they generally wouldn't want to do that but if the player's contract is ending and they aren't going to play for you why not?

[baxus]

I mean the contract that has an expiration date and if the player is doing everything the contract says he should until that expiration date then the club will be in serious trouble if they try not to pay him for his services. If the contract defines that relationship between club and a player ends on June 30th, 2020 then neither party has any obligation to the other party after that day. If they want to sign a mutually agreed upon extension, no one will stop them. But if one side tries to pressure the other into it by threatening to withdraw their services then that's a big no-no. 

About making players redundant, I'm pretty sure that case is pretty solidly covered by those contracts. Since no clubs seem to be doing that it seems players are rather well protected by their contracts. Once again, the club that would make players redundant would have a major PR disaster on their hands.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

They probably could if they wanted to. On the other hand the clubs probably wouldn't have much incentive to pay them their wages for the last couple of months if they did that.

So, you suggest clubs withholding wages, based on the player not signing a 2 (or 3) month extension. This sounds so muuch like a Mike Ashley solution, but good luck with that. The problem is, contracts haven an expiration date as Baxus pointed out. If say David Silva decides, the risk of getting sick is too high, you really can't force him to play beyond the 30th of June. He is in the last stages of his career, so I'd think the chances of him getting convinced by a final pay check are not that high. So future considerations about the continuation of his playing career arguably don't factor in that much.

 

1 hour ago, baxus said:

About making players redundant, I'm pretty sure that case is pretty solidly covered by those contracts. Since no clubs seem to be doing that it seems players are rather well protected by their contracts. Once again, the club that would make players redundant would have a major PR disaster on their hands.

I think the issue is, if you make them redundant, they might leave on a free transfer. In Germany a few clubs (second tier and below) consider going into administration, as the German Football League has announced they'd suspend the punishment in form of point deductions. The downside is, if you go that, your players can just leave the club. And the ones leaving would presumably be, the ones you wish to keep. So not that greatest idea for the second tier clubs. for the third tier clubs, with less valuable assets on the pitch, that prospect of going into administration looks a bit more tempting. Personally, it'd annoy the shit out of me, if Kaiserslautern (aka FC tax payers money) got out of the hole they had digged themselves by decades of overspending, but that's another story, for another day.

[ljkeane]

9 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So, you suggest clubs withholding wages, based on the player not signing a 2 (or 3) month extension. This sounds so muuch like a Mike Ashley solution, but good luck with that. The problem is, contracts haven an expiration date as Baxus pointed out. If say David Silva decides, the risk of getting sick is too high, you really can't force him to play beyond the 30th of June.

Of course they can't force players to sign a contract extension. If players are going to refuse to put themselves into situations were they might catch covid 19 though I'd expect it's going to come up before June 30th (or probably not at all). I could see the season potentially carrying on beyond June but if clubs haven't even got the players into training by then I doubt it'll happen.