Barcelona and Real Madrid’s tapping up habits are getting out of hand. Sandro Rosell’s recent comments about Bale and Real Madrid’s announced interest in Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere cannot be seen as anything other than a blatant flaunting of the tapping up rules. But wait, what are those rules again? ‘Any clubs caught tapping up players are heavily punished unless you are Barcelona or Real Madrid’ – ah yes that’s it.

In all seriousness though any club wishing to buy a player must go through the club first and ideally give up if their inquiry is rebuffed, try telling the Spanish and Catalan capitals that. The inconsistencies in the punishment of tapping up players have seen Arsenal, and Chelsea punished for tapping up of numerous players whilst Clubs like the Spanish giants consistently get away with it.

Chelsea

The tapping up of Arsenal’s Ashley Cole saw Jose Mourinho, Peter Kenyon, Cole and his agent all punished with six figure fines in 2005. Rightly so too, their approach for Cole and Chelsea were in breach of Premier League rule K5 which states that which states that no approach can be made by club or player for a potential transfer without first receiving permission from the parent club.

Chelsea were also punished by FIFA who initially banned Chelsea from signing players for two transfer windows for causing Gael Kakuta to break with his contract with club FC Lens in 2007. Whilst eventually it was decided that Kakuta’s contract with his French club had not been binding and therefore the ban was repealed the fact remains that FIFA were quick to come down on Chelsea for what they perceived to be wrongdoing.

Arsenal

Arsenal too have been at the centre of tapping up rows for the signing of Nicolas Anelka and the potential signings ofGabriel Agbonlahor and Joleon Lescott. The case with the latter two was something that was staunchly denied by Pat Rice in 2009 when the Arsenal Assistant manager said: “Arsenal have never been and will never be a club that taps up or illegally approaches a player it wants.” To be fair to Arsenal there was little evidence for any of these occurrences but ultimately they too have been under high levels of scrutiny for their transfer dealings. So why doesn’t the same apply to the Spanish clubs?

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