The Buying Game

The month of August is a time of excitement in the football calendar as it heralds the start of a new campaign. It also brings an industry spike to the world of football that reverberates throughout all levels of the game. With a new season on the horizon each club is looking to prepare itself for the up-coming crusade, leaving no stone un-turned in their quest for success. Players return after the summer break in a variety of conditions; some looking to increase their fitness levels after a period of rest, some easing their way back into training after the rigors of the World Cup, and some looking to acclimatize to a new surrounding & teammates. Coaches have the opportunity to imprint a new playing style, develop an old one or bring about a new culture to the club. The new season affords the management & playing staff the chance of a fresh start, having had time to fully calibrate their thinking over the summer months. All of these on field matters are of course very important to the loyal fan base, but what of those activities that go on away from the field? The Summer transfer market is not a new concept by any means, but it lends itself to the backdrop of the game & often can make or break a season before its even kicked off. In this piece I intend to explore why the transfer market is so rife at this time of year & why having the best team off the field is as important as those who play upon it.

The transfer system is largely driven by natural market forces, however new regulatory measures have rendered player trading to small pockets of time throughout the year. In effect this has heightened the need to recruit in numbers, such is the lack of ability to make up for any moves that may result in failure. Conversely this has increased the willingness to sell, as clubs do not want to carry players who are deemed surplus to requirement. Where this leaves us is in a state of flux which see's many clubs resort to any number of different transfer strategies. Club's may wish to shift a group of underutilized players from their wage bill in order to fund 1 larger purchase, the "marquee" signing if you will. In contrast 1 large player sale could enable said club to strengthen a number of other positions. Recent examples have been the Bale & Suarez moves to Spain. Regardless of a club's strategy upon entering the transfer period, cost & spending are often variables that are extremely hard to control. Market forces tell us that a simple set of guidelines should allow us to derive value.....not so simple on planet football. Form, age, competing league, international appearances, honors...all of these would seem rational to the novice, however further factors also can come into play. Has the buying club just sold a player for lots of money? Has the player been on the end of 1 too many tabloid headlines? Is the buying club familiar with said player's agent, who can enhance the deal? Gone are the days when a club's manager would simply pick up the phone & agree a trade off with the selling clubs gaffer. In board rooms & admin offices across the world, there is another team of individuals that have the responsibility to perform well for their club. This team must work diligently to construct any number of player deals that are completed swiftly, professionally, and leaves all parties with a sense of content. It could be argued that those clubs with a strong Chief Executive & business model will transfer those qualities onto the field. "Closing the deal" as it were, is an all together more complex affair, but again it lends itself to what is modern day football....a series of business transactions.

The PR machine that follows football has become as sophisticated & robust as any high profile political propaganda. This carries with it a following of fans that are colored by daily updates, largely built from conjecture. Those in the media may establish a failed bid as a "Lack of ambition", leading to accusations of a low funding board. Manchester United famously missed out on numerous deals at the start of the Moyes era, which lead to much instability and a negative mindset to start the season within its fan base. Most Clubs want to enter into any negotiation with an heir of fiscal strength, but equally they are duty bound to be mindful & prudent. Paying too much in a transfer fee can often place unnecessary pressure onto the player, citing questions about their early form. Many examples can be drawn upon here, however the best illustration of this has to be Fernando Torres switch to Chelsea. The Spaniard's free flowing & creative Liverpool form seems to have totally evaporated under the weight of his vast price tag. Such is the power of the media, those within the game are also regular proponents of the use of "spin". Selling clubs have been known to leak certain transfer bids to the media, often as a mechanism to enhance interest in a particular player & increase his market value. It's also been known that a club will report a "phantom bid" to the media, acting as a pseudo statement of intent that they've set their sights high. This is a tactic that some board members use to cajole their "want-away" stars, who naturally they would rather keep at the club. We've also become extremely familiar with the news tag line that a player is "handing in a formal transfer request" at the behest of his new suitors. Often this is a tactic to put pressure on his club, ultimately forcing through a deal. As you can see the reporting of transfer activity plays a pivotal role in proceedings, often parlaying itself into the end result. Clubs use the media to control their PR, but at times not even those outlets can control the feverish view point carried by football fans. It seems an age ago that Arsenal offered £1 over Luis Suarez reported £40M buyout clause. To those who were part of the bid I can only assume they felt the £40M was a substantial signal of intent, and heralded a new dawn in their transfer policy. The addition of the £1 however appeared as contrived to the viewing public and placed Arsenal within a position of weakness within the deal. Fickle as it may seem, it's this attention to detail that can often be the making or breaking of a transfer.

Throughout my time as a football fan I mandate the following policy: I'll believe it when I see it. Only when my team's newest star is posing with the club scarf will I fully accept the signing as fact. All too often we hear of nearly signings or late call offs. I remember as a child being utterly beside myself at the thought of Glasgow Rangers signing Mario Jardel. The bustling Brazilian goal machine had all but signed for the club, and was even paraded in front of the fans before completing his deal the next day. I'd read all about him in World Soccer magazine & had watched him bang in goals for Porto in the Champions League. Now I was ready for his assault on the Scottish league, only to hear that the deal had been scuppered when it appeared complications had arisen during his medical. In my 11 year old mind our season was over. How were we expected to score goals now if Jardel wasn't signing? McCoist can't do it all himself I thought! This case a side, it's extremely easy for supporters to place a certain element of faith within a new signing, or get caught up in the need to spend money at all! Transfer spending can carry the hopes and dreams of a football community...a symbol of change....a sign of optimism. What other mechanism in football can carry such emotion? There simply isn't one. A signing policy however is only as strong as those who can execute the deals. Therefore we cannot underestimate the importance of a strong business team. We as football fans are adept in understanding the shop front....the tactics, the players, the decisions....but what of the activities behind the scenes? Most of the deals that take place remain confidential, which spurns its own level of media frenzy. Would our game be better off if we as fans were given transparency as to the level of spending our clubs take part in? Would this in some way allow us to evaluate the transfer with greater clarity? Perhaps. The individual transfer aside, it would allow us to form an educated assessment of our CEO's & Chief Exec's performance. They are after all spending a large part of our collective investment, surely we should be privy to where these funds are being placed? If football is to continue its evolution in a positive manner we as supporters have to ask more questions of our clubs performance, and not just those that take place between the white lines. We don't have to be qualified accountancy experts, nor do we require a keen eye for evaluating tax returns to evaluate where our Clubs are headed. We as fans are the clubs vision, we form the expectation levels & ultimately it's us that our club leaders are establishing an understanding with. Unity among a fan base is both rare & largely ideological, but I am certain we can all share in the notion that we want to experience many more transfer windows to come. It's therefore important that we reduce cat calling for check books to be opened, or base the legitimacy of our clubs signing policy upon its ranking in the overall spend table. Longevity & stability are commodities that are often overlooked in football, but we as fans have to embody the future of the game....a future that we will all enjoy. At it's very core professional football is a business, and one that requires all forms of support. As its largest share holders we need to ensure our stock does not plummet, but serves to benefactor all of the glories & grandeur this magnificent game brings us all.

Watching History Unfold

What does watching football mean to you? Really think about that for a moment…..millions of the world’s population takes part in this past time, but what draws us to the game in such vast numbers? Whether it’s a documentary charting the history of the game, a youtube highlight reel of a particular player or even a live televised match, football has an innate ability to captivate & engage an audience across the globe. This was evident in this summer’s FIFA World Cup, which remains the highest attended single sport competition in the world. While football has certainly established itself as the “global game” it’s true meaning & purpose is an altogether individual affair, and one that each of us has fashioned out of personal experiences. In this piece I intend to explore what watching football means to me.

Like most people I was introduced to football by my father. He participated at numerous levels of the game both as a player & manager; therefore it was inevitable that his passion for football would rub off on me. He & my grandfather were avid Glasgow Rangers supporters, so anytime there was a game live on TV we’d all group together to tune in. Often I’d have more fun watching them during a live game; gesticulating toward the referee, twisted facial expressions at substitutions, reenacting head movements whenever there was a header toward goal….all of this was viewing gold during my formative years. Before my parents had stumped up for Sky television there was a liberal yet sparkling amount of games that were on terrestrial TV. Therefore we were locked and loaded whenever the time came to tune in for the match. Major competitions such as Italia 90, Euro 92 & USA 94 would see my father & I go on football binges, taking in the delights of daily games over prolonged periods of the summer. Then we progressed onto channel 4’s Football Italia coverage, not to mention the Scottish Premier League live games & English Cup Competitions that were starting to increase each year. Football soon became the epicenter of my world, but what was it about watching the game that gripped me? I can’t for a minute contemplate that it all started by analyzing the intricacies of Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan cover pressure system. Nor was it forming opinion on Aston Villa’s twin striker link up play between Dalian Atkinson & Dean Saunders. Watching Football was laying in wake for the spectacular moments….the goals, the controversy, the moments of magic. Being able to watch something happen live that would go down in history, that’s what I’d yearn for. I remember watching George Weah weave through the whole Verona team, while at AC Milan, to score one of the most spectacular goals I’d ever witnessed. I truly thought I was watching a football god at work, and better yet, I’d saw it happen Live! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDuZpma_Oxs).

As I grew older my spectrum of football would increase with the additions of Sky Television & Channel 5 in the summer 97. I remember beaming from ear to ear, acting as if it were some pseudo summer transfer coup I’d pulled off. As well as carrying all major British football competitions, Sky Sports covered the Spanish league which brought a new flavor to what was an already growing timetable. The delights of Rivaldo, Raul & Luis Enrique really gave me an insight into what technical football was all about. Eurosport, a channel which came in the Sky Sports package, boosted my football fix further providing coverage of all of Central Europe’s top leagues in a round up show, cunningly entitled Euro Goals. Channel 5 offered some further diversity with its weekly game packages from the Dutch Eredivisie, Major League Soccer from the USA, and the top leagues of both Argentina & Brazil. These games weren’t ever live and with the show airing between 1am & 5am it did present a challenge to the viewer to say the least! In the early 00’s I was afforded an opportunity to attend a Level 1 football coaching course, which was soon to shift how I watched football forever. Suddenly the games I was taking in each week went from a source of spectacle, to one of X’s & O’s and the search for deeper thinking. My first educator in football was current Annan FC manager Jim Chapman. Jim was a development officer for the Scottish FA, and ran coach education courses in the region where I lived. In the months to come I would take up a post working for Jim, but in those early encounters he would give me challenges to look out for. “Count how many times X midfielder scans the field” he’d say, or “Look at where the forward picks up the ball before he shoots”. All very basic stuff in the grand scheme of things, but it was this new connection that really lit a fire underneath me.

Moving into the new Millennium I had developed an almost encyclopedic knowledge of players. From those who filled the squads of Europe’s elite to those who were journeymen from a South American back water. I wanted to build up as much knowledge of the game as possible, and where better to start than its players? Sure there were a few snap judgments in there, but in the days before Youtube & Twitter the world was a much tougher place to source info! When I turned 16 I jumped onto the lowest possible rung of football, but I took the opportunity with both hands & soon descended into an unadulterated football junkie. Setanta Sports were the newest broadcast providers and they completed what was to be my cornucopia of football TV schedules. They brought along with them the Portuguese Primeira Liga, France’s Ligue 1 & a rejuvenated showing of the Italian Serie A. At this stage watching football had transformed into a world of note taking, tactical analysis, strategy breakdowns, and even the odd “What would I do here” scenario role play. Looking back it was such a shift from my early days of tuning into football. Sure I would react like anyone else toward a last minute winner or an underdog victory, but my endeavor was now to increase my understanding of the game through the search for deeper meaning. Why did the coach move that player there? Why is that strikers run always to the front post? How does that midfielder always seem un-marked when he arrives in the box? It was these types of questions that were fuelling my desire to learn. Each game became like an exam for me, a challenge. As the amount of games I watched began to increase, so did my application to learning. I’d fill up notebooks with endless reams of scribbles, all in the search for a firmer grip on what really was going on. I was fast developing my own opinions of the game & how I viewed its structure, but it was during this period that I developed one of the best skills we can acquire in life…..the ability to listen. I would ask everyone & anyone questions about the game. How they saw a specific substitution play out….how they felt the back four pressed…..which areas of the field a team centered possession through….all are examples of how I would transfer myself into their visual. Whether I agreed or not was irrelevant, for me it was like gaining access to a completely different camera angle, a new viewpoint or vantage.

15 years or so later & I still ask these same questions. I still search for deeper meaning, and I learn something new with every game that passes. That said, just because I watch a lot of football really doesn’t make me an expert. The beauty of this sport is that you’ve never cracked it. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out a new trend will appear, a rule change alters the flow & a new breed of player gravitates to the top thus changing how the game operates. When I really peel back the layers it’s the constant state of flux that makes football so intriguing to me. We each have our own opinions on the game, and rightfully so, it’s what will stimulate debate for decades to come. Football at its very core is individual expression; therefore how we interpret the game has to remain diverse & exclusive to how we see it with our own eyes. We should never be swayed by what others think, no matter how informed or educated they may be. This game belongs to us all, so take a moment to sit back & enjoy the show…..you’ll rarely be let down.

"It's better to go down with your own vision than with someone else's." Johan Cruyff