Loophole encouraging sale of academy talent is ‘nonsensical’, says PFA
Chelsea’s Ian Maatsen is set to join Aston Villa for around £35m Photograph: Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
Maheta Molango, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, has described the loophole that encourages academy products to be sold by clubs in order to balance the books as “nonsensical” and called for a change to the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules.
With the sale of homegrown players counting as pure profit, several clubs have taken advantage of the opportunity to balance their books before the Premier League’s deadline for submitting their annual accounts on Sunday. Aston Villa, Chelsea and Everton are among those thought to be close to exceeding the new PSR spending limits who have sold players from their academies in recent days.
Ian Maatsen is expected to join Villa from Chelsea for around £35m, with Omari Kellyman moving in the other direction for £19m. Villa have also signed Lewis Dobbin from Everton, with Tim Iroegbunam heading the other way.
Those moves were criticised by Molango, who has called on the Premier League to consider changing its rules because they are “counterproductive for the players”. He added: “It’s yet another good example of how players need to be at the table. We need to be part of those discussions, otherwise you end up introducing rules which make sense in a nice office with air conditioning but in practice it doesn’t make any sense.
“How can it make sense that due to the rules you end up selling an academy player? It doesn’t make sense for the club either because this is part of your identity, part of what makes the club what it is. You end up with nonsensical situations that meet the rules but are counterproductive for the players, but also for the club and also for the fans. Fans want to see their academy players, those are the ones who make you dream that create that bond with the club. This is why the governance of football needs to change.”
Molango has also called for more consultation regarding the Premier League’s plans to introduce “anchoring” – where clubs’ spending on wages, transfers and agents would be limited to a multiple of the television and prize money revenue earned by the league’s bottom club – next season. Manchester City and Manchester United are among those to have voted against the new rules, with the PFA still deciding whether to refer the debate to the Professional Football Negotiating and Consultative Committee (PFNCC).
“There needs to be a consultation. Whether we all have the same concept of consultation I’m not sure,” he added. “Consultation is not having a crazy idea, hearing from someone, tweaking it a bit and having something a little less crazy but, still crazy. This is not consultation. We hope to be able to follow the rules, what the PFNCC rules say, once we have sufficient information we’ll assess and decide next steps.”
The Confederation of African Football (Caf) confirmed last week that the next edition of the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco will start in mid-December to accommodate the expanded Club World Cup and the new Champions League format. A former under-21 international for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Molango was heavily critical of the decision, which he believes could affect the chances of African players being signed by English clubs in the future.
“I find it very disrespectful that it is always this competition that needs to give,” he said. “It’s not normal that a player in England needs to make a choice between the Christmas period, which is the crucial period for the clubs, and their international team, knowing that it’s important to him and that the consequence of not going to the national team has consequences for his family back home. Why should a player be put in that situation? And will it really hamper the chance of an African player to be hired by a club?”
The PFA, the French UNFP union and the European division of world players’ union, Fifpro, submitted a claim against Fifa to the Brussels court of commerce this month that seeks to “challenge the structure of football’s broken calendar” after the details for next year’s Club World Cup were announced. Europe’s highest court will be asked to rule on whether or not the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights – including Article 5 which prohibits slavery and forced labour – has been breached by football’s global governing body.
“We’ve been clear on what our red lines are – we want to defend our domestic calendar which has not moved for the last 20 years. We see no reason why the domestic calendar should be affected,” said Molango. “If I asked you to continue working for two consecutive years without a break, I think that’s as close as it gets to forced labour. Money does not solve any situation at all. If anything it increases visibility and pressure to deliver when you’re not physically and mentally ready to do it.”