Close to home: Regional players are indispensable for a club’s identity

by Chappers  24/07/2013 | 9:15 0 Posted in Football Manager 13 

Shearer and Newcastle, Ceulemans and Club Bruges, Van Himst and Anderlecht, Giggs and Man U, Gerrard and Liverpool, Totti and AS Roma,… Examples of club loyalty can be found in all countries and throughout football history.

However, we don’t see it that often anymore. Football is big business and the player market is one big global auction. Best transfer price, salaries and benefits win over the player and especially… his agent. Why is club loyalty so hard to find and how did it come to this?

Bosman opens the ‘market gates’

Let’s be honest. None of you would ever have recalled Jean-Marc Bosman for his football skills. After a promising career start at Belgian top club Standard, he was transferred to RC Liège, that also played in the first division at the time.

After serving out his contract in 1990, the French team USL Dunkerque was interested in the player. But didn’t want to pay RC Liège a transfer sum, which was still customary and legal at that time.

So Liège refused to cooperate. Bosman took the matter to court and finally won the case in 1995 against UEFA. As a result, Belgium and quite some other countries implemented more flexible transfer rules, the Bosman rule.

Then we have the Belgian labor law of ’78, stating that an employee can terminate his contract just by paying his former club a compensation that amounts to the player’s due wages until the end of the contract. Rather technical but with a huge impact to European football. After the Bosman judgement, all gates to the transfer market were opened.

Big money

And so ended the era of top football for medium and small countries in Europe. The chance of a Belgian team ever getting into a final of a European cup again – after Antwerp FC in 1993 on the holy grass of Wembley – have been reduced to almost zero.

Wealthy leagues, and especially the top teams of those leagues, became the dominant rulers of the game. You can say that the Champions League is the symbol of the new culture that was created: a European league with three or four top clubs of only a small elite of countries. Only the Russian teams – boosted by the oil roubles – were able to catch up with the new order.

All the other clubs – especially Belgian and Dutch teams – underwent the law of the strongest. But also within every country and league, you can clearly notice the struggle of local teams against the more wealthy top teams.

If a footballer plays some fantastic games, you can be sure that he’s already on the radar of a top club. So what do you do as a small town club? You put a reasonable price on the player’s head and try to transfer him before he can walk out for free, leaving his home club empty-handed.

Club’s identity

For local teams, it is important to have a clear vision and strategy. What is their goal, ambition, even reason for being. In that view, they can never forget an important stakeholder: the supporter. Even in a world ruled by money, you still need a group of loyal supporters.

Supporters that will stand by their team, even in bad times. It’s great to win games, but what for the future?

Now, I have to refer with some nostalgia to SK Beveren. Bever… who? Beveren was a small town club that was promoted in the sixties from fourth to first division in Belgium. In 1979, they became champions, a stunt that was repeated in 1984.

Between those two championships, they upset Europe by defeating Inter Milan. Ok, they had a great goal keeper: the great Jean-Marie-Pfaff. But they were only decent youth players, good regional players and 2 German super-subs that scored the goals. But in that time, Beveren was feared from Anderlecht to Barcelona because of their commitment and drive.

Eleven players that would give everything they have, just to see their team win at the end of the day. Not because of extra bonuses, but because of club devotion.

After the golden eighties came some really bad times. The club decided to start a cooperation with an Ivory Coast football academy. Players you will have surely heard of: Yaya Touré, Eboué, Romaric.

At first, the African injection of technical skilled players – sometimes eleven African players at the kick-off (!!!) – was a blessing for the club. But once the teams’ results got worse and the club relegated, supporters stayed home. What was left of their club? A satellite club without any identity, without any local players.

Limitations vs Flexibility

Lots of countries have put limitations on hiring foreign players. Strong leagues wanted to protect the domestic youth players against the inflow of cheaper foreign players. But still, the European free movement of persons allows a rather easy transfer from one country in the EU to another. And yes, I know, lots of FM gamers, including myself, are happy to have lots of transfer options in their virtual management career. But don’t forget the realism of a club’s local identity.

Also UEFA has attention for this identity, because Platini and co want every team in a European cup to have at least a number of home grown players. It is a rule that puts some kind of ‘regional realism’ to football. It’s all about finding a balance between a club (or regional) loyalty and the everlasting ambition of the average football player to go for more fame… and money.

For you gamers, if you really like a player to stay at your club, you can only hope that FM has awarded him 20 points for loyalty!

Nationalism

We also don’t have to be blind for political realism, nationalistic views have to be taken into account.

It is not new to football or FM. We all know the Basque team Athletic Bilbao that only hires players with a Basque origin. Although this is a rather exceptional team, it is a vision they chose for themselves, based on their cultural heritage.

Not a lot of European clubs will follow this example, but there should be more cultural features in FM to clearly mark regional identities. Why not distinct Catalan players, or Flemish and Wallon players in Belgium?

Why can’t you choose youth academies that only generate players of one specific region? Why not offer more club policy features that can be directed to attracting local players and limiting foreign players? FM managers could chose to keep local players close to home and to stimulate their club’s identity?

Perhaps this isn’t something for FM 2014, but in the future this is surely a way to massage our cultural identities.

Tom Schelfhout

FM Scout