How grassroots clubs are being outwitted by rich academies News

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How grassroots clubs are being outwitted by rich academies

By Daily Sports on December 29, 2016

A young star football player is discovered in the streets by a local grassroots coach. He sees potential in the player and makes the decision to take the player into his club and care. He provides training kits for the lad and gives him the opportunity to shine by coaching the rudimentary techniques and physical needs into him and featuring him in state and national competitions. The player becomes well known and many see the potential that the coach has seen. Then when a ‘big’ tournament or trial match is to be hosted by a ‘big’ football agent or philanthropist who promises to take the boy overseas to get a club, the coach and founder of the grassroots club is thrilled about the prospects of the lad bringing a huge transfer fee that would help the club grow, while the player goes on to a fuller and better pro career. However, in many cases nowadays, this is a misplaced hope for the coach at least.

The trend now among many big men and so-called football academies who wish to invest in football players’ management is simply to poach many small grassroots clubs struggling with resources, but rich in great natural potentials.

The tactic is a hard-nosed outwitting of the small grassroots clubs by inviting them for tournaments or talent search matches, with the pretext that there’s a big tournament that they have to attend outside the country for the best players to play and get a foreign club to sign them. These academies would put themselves forward as agents brokering the deal. In some cases, a partnership agreement is signed between the small club and the academies as co-owners of the economic rights of the player in the event of a transfer to a foreign club.

But here’s the thing. When the youngsters are assembled into an ‘academy’ team by the so-called agents or scouts, the indoctrination process then kicks off, with the aim being to eventually win total control of the lads. The players are showered with a lot of money if their valuation in the eyes of the ‘academy’ is high and their contract situation with what is supposed to be their parent club is scrutinised to see where there are exploitable loopholes. In many cases there are.

Despite their sacrifices for their young talented players, many grassroots clubs, for reasons of ignorance of the rules of contracts, do not have a proper contract agreement with their players. All they have to offer as valid existing contract agreements are the lad’s signature in the NFF-organised national Federation Cup.

But these signatures and contracts only last for a year and end when the year in which the player turned out for the club in the FA Cup runs out. Afterwards, the player becomes a free agent. Many grassroots clubs do not know this and continue to believe that the player is theirs and that he would need their approval to switch loyalty or clubs. But this is wrong.

As I write, a well-known grassroots club in Nigeria is battling it out with an 'academy' over the right of ownership of a player who turned out for Nigeria in a junior international competition recently. The situation painted above is currently what is playing out.

The boy in question has committed to the academy with his signature after the academy got him a club in eastern Europe. Though he's no longer with that team, his prospects of getting a bigger and better team is decent.

Now the academy reportedly claim that they got the player after a scouting exercise in the mid west of Nigeria and that they have no business with the grassroots team they so pleaded with to release the boy to them last year.

Legally, the academy has a case. After the 2015 season for which the player registered in the NFF-organised Federations Cup and turned out for his grassroots club, he becomes a free agent in the absence of a current legally binding contract. When a player’s contract with a club runs down, he has a right to sign for another team. That’s what this guy has done, after the academy feted him with some goodies.

The consequence of this scenario for the poorer grassroots club from which this player leaves is that they would miss out on that large transfer fee that would have been due them in the event of the player moving to a European club. They would now be left with the consolation prize of Training Compensation fee for the time the player spent playing for them. This is not enough usually to sustain these grassroots clubs to the extent that a transfer fee would.

The lesson for grassroots teams here is that they have to start thinking more professionally in terms of players' contract issues. In order for them to secure ownership of their players for the longer term and avoid situations where they lose them so easily, they have to try to secure their players signature for a longer term just as professional clubs all over the world do. Draft a contract with a player, get him to sign and register that contract with the NFF for final approval. That’s the way to go.

It should as well be noted that the player’s interest must be taken into consideration seriously in all of these. When some players feel a particular team or academy represents their best chance to success, they opt for them without attaching much sentiment to who has been taking care of them.

However, the loyalty to their grassroots clubs that some young lads showed despite enticements from different richer angles attracts admiration. Isaac Success who plays in English premiership side Watford is one such player. Before turning out for the Nigerian under-17 team three years ago, he came under serious pressure from some rich agents and academies to dump his then local club BJ Foundation of Benin City and sign for them. He stuck to the team, even in the face of threats that he could lose his place in the under 17 team. He refused to betray his allegiance to BJ. Such was his confidence in his talent. He went on to sign for Granada and blessed the then struggling BJ with a huge transfer fee.

Source Daily Sports

Posted December 29, 2016