Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Tapping up, Cesc Fabregas and what’s happening this summer

By Phil Gregory

With Barcelona’s pursuit of Cesc Fabregas  never out of the news (largely thanks to the rent-a-quote that is Xavi Hernandez)  Gunners worldwide have been getting more than a little annoyed and anger at “tapping up” is commonplace.

The Ashley Cole saga is surely the best-known tapping up case, with Cole’s agent banned for nine months with another nine suspended and Chelsea FC fined £300,000. Both Mourinho and Cole got fined £75,000, -probably less than a week’s wages – with a suspended three point deduction more like to have raised concern.

So what did Chelsea do to get charged and yet Barca can brazenly flutter their eyelashes through the media and not be pulled up on it?

Well, tapping up is making an illegal approach for a player under contract. Referring to rule K6 “a contract player, either by himself or by an person on his behalf, shall not either directly or indirectly make any such approach… without having obtained the prior written consent of his club”.

Chelsea were caught with Cole whereas Barcelona haven’t technically made an approach. Xavi and Pique may have quite  a bit to say, but they haven’t yet mentioned contract terms in any of their lovely little media soundbites.

As Arsenal found out a couple of years ago, it gets trickier for both the authorities and the accusatory clubs  when you suspect a player has met officials, but haven’t got proof of a meet or what exactly they talked about.  Hleb and his agent apparently “went for an ice cream” while in Milan for the San Siro clash in the Champions league a couple of seasons back, which didn’t tally with what Wenger suspected. Our boss believed they were off to meet Inter Milan and discuss a deal but it was simply Arsene’s suspicions versus Hleb’s word .

The goal-shy attacking midfielder left for Barcelona that very summer and we got Samir Nasri in to replace him so it doesn’t always end badly, but the principle no doubt stung Wenger. If it were Fabregas , Van Persie or Wilshere who got their heads turned after a covert meeting would they be so easily replaceable?

Which brings us to Barcelona and Cesc Fabregas. By the definition of tapping up, Barcelona aren’t doing anything illegal as there is no evidence they have made a proposal to the player. While you don’t have to be a big cynic to suspect that their unprecedented efforts to sign the Catalan – which culminated in two unsuccessful bids being made – were probably helped with a backdrop of sweet nothings in his ear during Spain’s victorious World Cup campaign., there’s no evidence of any rules being broken.

Until we have more than suspicions to act on, we’ll have to content ourselves with beating them in the Champions League on a fraction of their budget and pinching their top academy starlets.

The reasons Barcelona  are attempting to unsettle Cesc are fairly evident. A player of Fabregas’ age and ability is always going to move for an absolute minimum of £40m and given his contract last summer had five years to run,  there was no pressure on Arsenal to sell before he can leave on a free. Even the coming summer he would still have four years left to run, so any fee has to come into the £40-£60m range given his level of performance.

The issue that Barcelona  are struggling to overcome is that we simply don’t need their money. Last summer they didn’t offer enough to tempt us but why would Arsenal take an offer even of £60m+ when we have record amounts of cash in the bank? That’s not going to change over the current season (especially if we keep getting so many cup replays!) so I genuinely cannot see why Arsenal would feel a need to cash in. Sure, if the squad was struggling then Wenger may be tempted to cash in for an overhaul but we’d struggle to get a better player than Fabregas for that sort of money, so why part with him in the first place?

There is of course a good argument that Barcelona couldn’t even find £60m, which is highly valid. Even without doing a full analysis of their latest accounts I’m confident that they don’t have £60m to spare and UEFA’s Financial Fair Play means they can’t afford more losses in the coming financial years. Their record sponsorship deal with Qatar might have helped them out in this regard, but any club needing a bridging loan to pay wages surely can’t have huge amounts of cash profits in accounts just begging to be spent.

That said, nothing about Barcelona’s finances is rational, or indeed, the finances of the entire nation of Spain for that matter. Despite their government struggling to cut their budget deficit amid a mind-boggling level of unemployment for a developed nation I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Spanish financial institutions lent them money.

It would be a fairly daft loan to make, and I highly doubt the interest charge would accurately reflect the risks involved, but it would be a foolish person who bet against the capacity of the Spanish banking sector to make a dodgy bet.

The situation is further complicated given the ties of Barcelona’s President and the membership situation of the club, which would potentially allow  them a degree of influence over a local financial institution. A loan like this would solve the issue of not having the cash to spend, but wages and amortisation of the transfer fee would still be charged to the club accounts which aren’t exactly in the best condition given the arrival of Financial Fair Play. Yet Barcelona might just be daft enough to want to do the deal anyway.

There are only two ways I can see Fabregas leaving the club this summer. One, he forces an exit (Wenger doesn’t like keeping unhappy players) and the club secure a fee of £40-£60m in line with his value. This isn’t in line with how he has acted up to this point so seems unlikely, he recognises he owes a debt to Wenger and freely admits he sees him as a father figure.

Two, Wenger feels he can replace Fabregas by shuffling his current squad and adding another offensive player, meaning the squad improves despite Cesc’s departure. Such a decision may be taken with concerns over his injury record in mind. Arsène is all about value however, and if he had just banked a £60m fee there is no way he is going to be quoted realistic fees for any summer transfer targets. I suspect he’d get around this situation by bringing in his main target early, prior to sanctioning Cesc’s departure. I don’t foresee a like-for-like replacement coming in and certainly not for big money.

The most likely situation is that he’d replace Cesc with someone like Nasri moving into the centre, and bring in another wide attacker to compete with Arshavin and Theo. Nasri has shown he can play the role and I just cannot see Wenger buying a replacement for a role as key as central playmaker from abroad, given the necessary adaptation to English football.

The presence of players like Ramsey waiting in the wings make a big new signing unnecessary. Someone like Wilshere could be  moved forward as an alternative to Nasri too, with additional defensive cover secured to fill the gap at the back. Either way, the squad we have covers Cesc’s absence and a signing is brought in to cover the reshuffling of the squad.

This second situation is the one that I suspect is the more likely to happen, given Cesc’s injury troubles this season. It’d be the perfect time to cash in, before he gets the “injury prone” label and his value drops off.

I’m in two minds as to what I’d think if he did leave. On the one hand, his injury troubles concern me, and I think we’d be stronger given the situation outlined above. On the other hand, my girlfriend’s step-dad is convinced he’s going to leave and we had a heated discussion on the subject (he’s a Liverpool fan, so he’s seen the defections of Alonso, Torres and Mascherano so I suspect he’s predisposed towards thinking players will cut and run). Naturally I don’t fancy my next trip to their house if indeed he does depart, though a Premier League title and Liverpool missing out on Europe should be sufficient defence for me I suspect!

In the near future I’m going to have a look at international tapping up, the Kakuta case and youth transfers so expect a follow-up article at some point.