Clubs and National Teams

I didn't want to distract from the Costa Rica recap so I thought I'd make another thread on the issue of club teams and the compensation of injuries from national team duties.

Anyways, there was 2 comments on the other thread mentioning or implying that it is wrong for Milan to ask for money or something to that extent. I think this is something that comes from the much larger club v country debate. So I ask 2 questions.


Should a country be required to pay for injuries?


Should club teams have a legal right to demand that players should be returned to the club after a country has already clinched world cup qualification or European qualification? Should they also have a right to demand that players be kept off of friendly rosters?



I lean towards the club side and will respond later.

 

Not soccer, but I know Mark Cuban does not like when Dirk plays for Germany (Dirk sat out of the World Championships this summer). I think they (the Mavs/Cuban) even pulled out insurance policies on both Dirk and Jason Kidd during the last Olympics since Dallas is paying them both roughly 18-20 million a year.

 

Clubs benefit financially when their players play internationally. Manchester United sells more shirts because Park Ji-Sung plays for South Korea, and Milan sell more shirts because Onyewu plays for the USA. Fulham might very well sell more shirts if Andy Johnson were to get back into the England squad. When Clint Dempsey plays well for the USA, he enhances his value if Fulham were to decide to sell him, and improves as a player by playing at a high level, enabling for him to be more effective when playing for Fulham, enabling Fulham to be a better team and finish higher in the table and earn money for that.

My point is, clubs accrue real benefits if their players play internationally, so I don't think it's unfair that they also assume some of the risk that the player might be injured in the course of creating those benefits.

 

I could not agree more JMH. You took the words right out of my mouth.

 

They would improve even if they didn't play any international football. Let's be honest nobody is going to improve by playing teams like Costa Rica. They will improve by playing teams like Juve though and by training with the very best everyday.Sure value goes up if they had a great world cup, but this doesn't mean that a national federation shouldn't be responsible for the injury. They're not paying the wages, the clubs are.

 

The assertion that a player doesn't necessarily improve a whole lot by playing Costa Rica (who we probably shouldn't badmouth too much, given that they did qualify for the last two World Cups and still might for the next one - if you want to pick a minnow, pick a real one), even if assumed to be true, still doesn't invalidate the broader premise that clubs realize real, financial benefits from having their players also playing for their national teams.

 

After the Michael Owen injury a few years back, FIFA ruled that National FAs were required to carry insurance on the players and were required to compensate the teams for long term injuries suffered by the players while on national team duty. This is the first time a US player has been involved and there is a lot of outrage by American fans, but really, it's the status quo and has been going on for years now.

 

Did Chelsea seek compensation from Ghana for Essien's injury? Not that I recall but maybe it is so status quo that it wasnt reported in the news.

I think you need to consider the role national programs play in the devlopment of young players especially in places like the US, Austrailia, and Africa where you dont have mega rich clubs doing that job.

In Gooch's case, I think AC Milan's complaints are very suspicious. They started crying for compensation immediately. Where was the "our thoughts are with Gooch, we feel so bad that his well-deserved appearance in the 2010 WC is now in serious jeapordy. This must be a very low time for him and our thoughts are with him". They werent even playing him for godsakes so they were paying him for nothing. What a boiling cauldron of utter slease AC Milan are.

Also, Gooch passed a medical not that long ago. The petellar tendon is an extremely strong tendon that rarely ruptures suddenly without prior symptoms like knee pain. In athletes it is usually an accumulation of damage or maybe even the result of numerous injections. They are so quick to claim foul play in effort to hide their guilt. I would seriously not be surprised if this was all by design because Italy is afraid of the US team. They know they cant beat us without cheating. Think I'm crazy, here is just a sample of what the Italian mafioso slease are capable of:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1016/p99s01-duts.html

 

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, FIFA and UEFA have policies on European players involved in both Int'l and UEFA tournaments. They pay the clubs a flat rate per player, per appearance with the agreement that the club won't seek compensation for injured players (regardless of salary). I believe that was put into place in 2008. I have no idea if anything similar exists outside of Europe.

Here in SA, there's a lot of grumbling about Manu and Tony Parker playing for their countries. Manu got hurt playing for Argentina and missed about 1/2 of the Spurs season. I don't believe there was any compensation involved in that one.

Domestically, we've also seen issues where players have been injured by doing something banned under their contract. Kellen Winslow with the Browns comes to mind. While there was talk of making him pay back his signing bonus, in the end, the team kept paying him and didn't seek compensation. That's a bit different, but it's been the general rule in this country that you just choke it up.

As jmh stated, there is a gain for the clubs from these players appearing for their national teams. Often it's not necessarily the improvement, but just the exposure on that stage. Clint certainly helped himself and Fulham with his performance and award at the Confed Cup. Tim did the same for himself and Everton.

 

I'm not sure what them benefitting financially has anything to do with it. After all they should benefit from everything since they are paying millions of pounds in wages every year.


There should be insurance policies taken out on players and I like the current policy. If a team loses there top players, it not only affects their bottom line, but also their chances of domestic and european success. They should get compensated for all of that loss.