Over the years we have been involved in a number of domestic and international football deals. We have learnt a huge amount about the practical aspects of football transfers. That experience has enabled us to make the complicated, simple. We know what’s important, we know how to work to seemingly impossible deadlines, and we know how to keep a deal on track whilst still looking out for the client’s needs. Below are some examples of the approach we take when working with players and agents.
Moving to China
We received a call one morning to say that a player was in China, ready to sign a £15m deal with a Chinese Super League club. The player was under pressure to sign the contract that evening – and given the eight hour time difference, it was already late afternoon in China. This was the first we knew of the deal, leaving us little time to work with.
Unusually, the player had travelled alone to China, and upon arrival in Beijing was driven to a hotel many hours away by car. A couple of foreign agents met him there, neither represented him. The first thing we did was arrange for a trusted contact in Beijing to get to the hotel as quickly as possible. With no one there looking out for the player, we wanted to make sure there was someone to check that the documents the player was being given in China matched the documents we were seeing in the UK.
The contract was sent through to us in Chinese and English and was disastrous for the player.
The club had the right to dismiss the player for minor breaches, they could relegate him to the reserves and slash his salary accordingly, they could impose heavy fines for anything deemed to have a negative impact on the club’s reputation – including yellow cards! There was even a clause that the player would owe the club $25million if he breached the employment contract. Overall, it was a dangerous contract for the player to sign because there were too many ways he could be punished which were beyond his control.
We spoke to the player’s agent as well as the foreign agents to understand the strength of the player’s bargaining power. They felt there was room to make changes because the club was keen to sign the player, the transfer window was closing, and there was little time for the club to fly a replacement out to China. The main issue was timing. Everyone stood to earn a lot on the deal, so they all wanted to see it signed quickly.
Given the deadline, we managed to get the club to agree that only the English version of the contract mattered, which did away with any uncertainty over the translation. We made all the changes that were needed to protect the player and left in the more minor provisions (while flagging them to the player so he understood that he had to behave in a certain way to avoid offending cultural beliefs and breaching the contract).
We worked late into the night but managed to get the contract in the shape the player needed, and it was signed first thing in the morning, Chinese time. Our man on the ground made sure the player signed the approved version.
Things started well but went downhill for the player who was out of favour. Fortunately, the contract we had secured for him was strong enough that the club could not dismiss him, and he was in a great position to negotiate his exit.