John Kosmina speaks to the media during a press conference at the Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Contract – an agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified. Has that definition ever been more ironic?
In truth, when it comes to football, a contract now means both the ‘doing’ and ‘not doing’ of something. They have become interchangeable.
A football player, manager, or even John Kosmina are only ‘contracted’ to a club to do something for as long as they feel like it. Then all their contract represents is what they no longer want to be doing.
When a player decides he wants to move on, club officials, managers and nostalgic ‘old timers’ in the media rue the death of loyalty in football. They rhetorically ask “what is a contract worth anymore?”
It would be a reasonable question to ask, if it wasn’t so regularly tainted by those it is coming from.
Players aren’t the only ones who tenuously hold contracts. Managers and media pundits are just as guilty.
Alan Shearer is the ideal example – and not just because he’s been both a player, manager and pundit at different times.
The former Newcastle United striker joined the pundit team on the BBC’s famous Match of the Day program as a guest, soon after he finished his playing career. Not long after he signed a contract to become a regular on the program.
However, that contract had a clause in it: if Newcastle United were to come knocking for Shearer’s managerial services he would be free to leave.
Now this arrangement, insisted upon by Shearer during negotiations, is entirely reasonable, but it demonstrates the continued devaluing of the ‘contract’.
A process that was taken a step further by English Championship side Peterborough United.
Darren Ferguson was Posh’s manager. He’d led an underachieving – but still struggling – side, from League Two, up into the Championship via two consecutive promotions.
While the purse strings had been fairly loose at London Road, most signings were shrewdly plucked from non-league football.
For a small club like Peterborough, who played in front of their biggest crowd of 43,000 just last Saturday at the laughably named sportsdirect.com@StJames’Park, it was a remarkable achievement.
Club director Barry Fry admitted as much on the same day he showed Ferguson the door, referring to the club’s achievements under their now former manager as ‘miraculous’.
Ferguson, the son of Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, was so well regarded for his abilities to call upon divine intervention that West Bromwich Albion and Reading both went sniffing around for his services during the English summer.
Much to the chagrin of Peterborough, the interest caught their manager’s attention.
The Peterborough board were unwilling to permit Ferguson to talk with his potential suitors and went so far as to give him a four-year contract extension. He was meant to be the man who would lead Peterborough into the next chapter of their history.
As Louise Taylor put it in her weekly League football column for The Guardian, “Considering Peterborough were languishing in League Two only two years ago it is surely understandable that Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Newcastle pushed them to the foot of the Championship.
“And, for goodness sake, Posh are just one point adrift at the bottom and only four short of safety.”
Yet Peterborough’s chairman Darragh MacAnthony still panicked and cut Ferguson adrift.
Peterborough, like many others before it, has further devalued the concept of a contract, which is fine, until they start complaining the next time a member of their staff want to move on while still under contract.
So, here’s my suggestion: whinging about the ‘value of contracts’ becomes forbidden by all and sundry; and the definition of the term when relating to football is changed.
Contract – an agreement in football between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of something specified until a better option comes up.
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