Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer that helped Jean-Marc Bosman change the laws regarding player opportunities at the end of their contract, has argued that the Premier League rules about third-party ownership of players are not legal. The laws, whilst legal in other countries, state that third party ownership is not allowed in England with Premier League spokesmen saying that they want to protect the integrity of the Premier League and avoid the problems faced by South American clubs. But is it time this rule was challenged?
High transfer prices
One of the main benefits of abandoning the rule would be in a transfer market with such inflated prices it would be easier for clubs with less money to buy players. For example if they were to buy a player that was half owned by a third party then they may only have to pay half of the transfer fee as the third party may be happy for their player to change clubs without selling their stake.
Therefore if player ‘x’ was valued at £20m then a club may only have to pay £10m for him. Clubs such as Everton, who are finding it hard to find the funds to buy players, are particularly likely to benefit from this. Alternatively If they wanted to buy a player that was fully owned by a club then they might be able to persuade a third party to invest part or half of the money into the transfer, therefore alleviating the burden of the entire transfer fee.
In this way Dupont has posed the question: what is the difference between the club using a third part owner to help them and a club going to the bank for a loan? This has greatly helped clubs in the Portuguese leagues where money is limited and indeed several of the top clubs make use of this system.
Dupont says the he is “not convinced that restrictions to that business are legitimate,” and said that he believed any challenge to the law would have a “very very good chance” of succeeding.
Negatives
However, there would obviously be downsides to any alteration or abandonment of the law. With outside companies owning stakes in players then millions of pounds are being taken out of a football industry in which the majority of clubs are already short of cash. Whilst teams with small buying power will be able to use these companies to supplement their spending power they will also receive little profit when the player is sold. People might say that this doesn’t matter but ultimately money is being given from one football club (the buyer) to a company that is not certain to reinvest that money back into football therefore depriving the industry of money put in by fans.