Tapping Up: What's the Deal?

Published online at SQ on 30th August 2011

The Premier League transfer window is becoming so predictable. Arsenal sign up another ‘promising youngster’, Man City break transfer records, and Man Utd make yet more title winning signings. Yet every year, we get more complaints about the ‘tapping up’ of players contested with the requests to soften the restrictions. So why does it hold such split opinions? Where do the distinctions lie? And should it be forbidden or is it just a facet of sourcing out player interest?

Effectively, tapping up is an attempt to pursue a player under contract to join another team, often without the knowledge of the player’s current club. There have been a number of a noteworthy cases in which it has been showcased, with the Ashley Cole saga of 2005 possibly the most famous

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This years issue however, has once again focused on Arsenal, and the ongoing Cesc Fabregas tale of his return to boyhood club Barcelona. Wenger, an unsurprising protester to tapping up has once again spoken out for need to review the regulations due to clubs “lack of respect”.

Pep Guardiola’s ruthless pursuit of Cesc will certainly have drawn some admirers, but Wenger’s concerns are fore fronted when you look at the way the Catalonia giants have basically forced Arsenal’s hand, and even Spanish team-mates Iniesta and Xavi have been getting in on the act, constantly urging the move in the media.

With the spotlight firmly on the Arsenal gaffer, there seems little option for Wenger but to release Cesc and give in to this schoolboy peer pressure, despite the apparent worthlessness of the contract he signed.

But is this just good business? 

With the Chelsea/ Cole case in 2005, it certainly was, as club and player tensions were deliberately intensified to force a deal, and a cut price deal at that.                                                                                                    

Barcelona are fully aware of this, and are simply waiting for Arsenal to crack, preferably at the lowest price possible.

Of course the club can reject offers, but this more often than not sours the relationship between club and player, and move is even more inevitable. For instance, this looks set to happen at Arsenal. Let’s face it, Cesc will not play for Arsenal again, and it is just a matter of time before the deal certified. 

Arsene Wenger has once again criticised the tapping up of players.  

Although Cesc’s prolonged silence and priceless “If I get sold it means the club does not want me” remark was intent enough, he always claimed loyalty to Arsenal and if the deal fell through, he would remain the inspirational captain he once was.

Yet the pursuit of him was enough. Especially from a football superpower such as Barcelona.

They will take the fine imposed if found guilty, much like Chelsea did, if it results in a world class signing.

Chelsea were fined £300,000 and a 3 point deduction, Cole was fined £100,00 and manager Mourinho £200,000, yet hardly a lesson learnt, as Chelsea re-offended in 2007 when illegally encouraging Lens player Gael Kakuta to  break his contract. Although the punishment of suspended transfers was lifted after a deal was agreed for Kakuta, this idea of banning clubs from transferring if found guilty certainly held permanence, as Chelsea were severely angered by the ban, despite obvious guilt.

So whilst FIFA have been testing out solutions to the problems through various punishments, there has been the argument that the rule shouldn’t exist in the first place, as it happens so frequently that punishments can never be consistent, nor  even necessary.

Sure Cesc was tapped up, but who hasn't been?

For instance, tapping up isn't illegal in any other profession. The respective term is simply regarded as sourcing out the top people for the job. If a top lawyer is approached and offered a better wage and privileges at a larger firm, he is free to move on to brighter pastures.

But why not in sport?

It will have something to do with merchandising, and the fact that clubs won’t want to plough millions into marketing their big name players after a contract renewal, to find out he’s secretly been plotting a move across the road for more sun.

Yet how can it even be avoided?

Clubs have to know of interest from a player, or whether he is available to move, otherwise the pursuit of a transfer is pointless. It’s cheaper, quicker and more effective to approach the player’s agent directly, and whilst many of the tactics employed by clubs like Barcelona leave much to be desired about the ways to approach players, there do appear some contradictions in the regulation.

Using recent ‘persona non grata’ Joey Barton as an example, clubs are able release players who are still under contract without any reprobation. Barton still had one year left at Newcastle, and whilst this particular instance was fuelled by Twitter rows, nothing stops clubs doing it when a player becomes disposable. The distinctions seem blurred between what is allowed and what isn’t, and one rule for player and another for club is hardly viable.

Wenger has called for a review of the regulation, but in order to tighten the laws so he doesn't continue to lose more starlets. Yet if player wants to play for a club, they will stay, and subsequently an increase in punishment won’t change player’s desires to leave, nor a club's pursuit. 

Whilst Wenger has had some unfortunate luck with tapping up in his history, especially from clubs able to offer substantially bigger pay packets, maybe it’s about time he realised that it is a facet of the modern game, and with the Premier League big boys racking up significant signings this summer, presumably through forms of tapping up, maybe he should let Cesc go and get involved himself. An eye for an eye and all.