Should transfer fees be abolished in professional soccer?

The biggest signing of the current European summer is Argentinian Sergio Aguero’s move to Manchester City from Athletico Madrid for a reported fee of £39 million. Dutch master Wesley Snejder hasn’t yet ruled out a move to Manchester United from Inter Milan, but as things stands, Aguero’s signing will be the most expensive of the summer. The son-in-law of Argentinian legend Diego Maradona, Aguero is also set to pocket £200 000 a week as City seek to win the Uefa Champions League at their first attempt.

Whenever soccer’s silly season rolls round, fans of the beautiful game are swamped by a never ending rumour mill of player movement, with the media’s hype often reaching such fever pitch that governments could learn a thing or two about propaganda. When we are dealing with a well known and highly regarded player, talk always centres around the price one club must pay another, excluding wages, to guarantee the services and marketability of some of the best soccer players on earth.

Doesn’t it seem that the numbers involved in such moves, be it pounds, euros or dollars, seem a little out of proportion with what the clubs are actually ‘buying’? It’s always caused me a sense of unease at how players move around the soccer world like cattle, and how much clubs are prepared to pay for them in a world haunted by credit-defaults and a currently sluggish global economy. With Uefa instituting the Financial Fair Play Regulations in May 2010, which in short aims to make club live on what they bring in, attempts are being made to try and bring some structure to the Wild West that is the transfer window. It’s a start, but that isn’t going to stop deals the size of Aguero’s or potentially Snejder’s going through the system at high prices.

Why do transfer fees even exist? They are meant to act as a representation of a players value in the open soccer market, which can be calculated by adding together revenue earners such as image rights and knock-on sponsorship deals. It is also a representation of that players’ value to their team, though with the price of the player being governed by more than simply performances on the pitch, often the figures we see are ludicrous. The Ronaldo transfer saga between Manchester United and Real Madrid springs to mind, as does the current ‘impasse’ that both Cesc Fabregas and Luka Modric have with their respective clubs about a possible move.

Wouldn’t the soccer world be a whole lot simpler if transfer fees were abolished? Instead of clubs having to have a large kitty of money to buy players, like one buys an expensive flatscreen TV from Makro, that money could be redistirubted in a manner which would mean higher wages for the players, since those millions wouldn’t be locked in a phased-deal, or it could even be channelled back into the club’s infrastrucuture. Attaching a price to everything is an undeniable part of the free market system, but it makes me slightly ill to think that human flesh is valued in such a manner in the world of professional soccer, with my examples coming from the current Wall Street of the soccer world, the English Premier League.

Since professional soccer players are payed for their abilities after all, like a chef or lawyer, why is it necessary for clubs to add another layer of complexity through a ‘Pay this or bugger off’ price? It can be argued that it does help clubs maintain the services of players since the soccer world is a volatile one. But if the fee didn’t exist, wages and other benefits within the multi-layed contracts players sign with their respective clubs will adjust accordingly.

It isn’t like the human slave trade, but minus the money along with the glitz and glamour, the transfer treadmill between soccer clubs kind of heads in that direction doesn’t it? Players are no longer people, but rather a product to moulded and sold. Coaches I imagine don’t think this way since they have the ‘simple’ task of man-managing the team, but for the suits in the boardroom, do they see anything else but cheques and bank accounts?