Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Javier Mascherano

I must confess to being a little confused about the controversy surrounding Mascherano's moves this season. Let's take the easy one first, the transfer from West Ham to Liverpool. FIFA rules apparently forbid a player from playing competitive games for more than two clubs in a season (where a season runs from July to June). The first club, Brazilian side Corinthians - being from South America - have a different season, so FIFA decided it wasn't a problem.

Now, the first one is more confusing. It seems* that Mascherano (and his compatriot Carlos Tevez) had registrations held not by West Ham but by Media Sports Investment, who were involved in a take-over bid for the Hammers at the time. Indeed, this third-party involvement was one of the reasons behind the delay in the Premier League allowing the second transfer to go through.

I can see there's something dubious about a player's registration not being held by a club, but I'd be grateful if anyone could put my uneasy feeling into words and maybe explain what's going on there.

* i.e., Wikipedia says.

4 comments:

Nessy said...

When West Ham signed the two players in the summer, it was widely rumoured that there was something a bit strange about the deal.
Why, then, did it take until they were trying to get rid of one of them for the Premier League to look into it?

Bill Clay said...

I'm sure someone can correct me if I am wrong but I believe I saw something somewhere (incredibly vague yes) that stated Liverpool may have bought Mascherano out of his third party ownership, so that they are now the sole owners of his current contract. What this means for Tevez the Wolf boy I don't know.

I hope this is the start & end of third party ownership in the European game but i fear its going to just be the beginning.

Bill Clay said...

What made me chuckle was the email that was sent round reminding all clubs about part ownership and asking them to inform them of any deals that might break player ownership rules.

What struck me with this is that the power obviously lies totally with clubs, either the FA/Premier League have no inclination to investigate into club matters or no absolutely no power to.

Nessy said...

Liverpool have signed Mascherano on a permanent basis for a fee of around £1.5M, although this is set to rise if the player stays at the club longer than the end of next season.

This was reported in the Liverpool Echo on February 24th and the story is archived at icliverpool.co.uk