'Webster Clause' - FM09

It seems the ability for players to buy out their own contracts has stimulated a whole new wave of transfer rumours.

But is this gonna be implemented in the game?

It seems the ability for players to buy out their own contracts has stimulated a whole new wave of transfer rumours.

But is this gonna be implemented in the game?

Excellent! I was hoping the players could have more rights to slag off when they don't like being held accountable when they dislike the new manager or don't want to fulfill their end of the contract.

Isn't this the same thing that was implemented in CM 01/02 where players under 28 after 3 years their contract was no longer protected and you could sign them without negotiating a fee, but you had to pay compensation based on the players remaining contract? For players over 28 it was 2 years.

I jumped from CM 01/02 to FM 2006, can anyone remember in which version this 'protected contract' rule was removed?

I'm not sure that rule realy ever existed, I remember it from CM, but don't ever remember it in real life.

FIFA are currently in talks about the "Webster clause" and its legalities, so until they come to a decision it won't be in FM in any shape or form.

this issue still isn't cofirmed, as far as I'm awere and I hope it wouldn't. also sepp blatter already said he's strongly against this rule, even though it's simply legal under european laws...

webster clause would just destroy all small clubs/countries. what's the point of having contracts then? only big clubs will be for it.

Its not been confirmed yet as to how it will work in the future. I think FIFA are looking at trying to get rid of the rule of at least change it as it could cause chaos.

As A Jambo this issue has a particular interest for me!

The rule itself is a FIFA NOT an EU rule. This ruling was inserted into football to placate some politicians in Brussels who have been making movements behind the scenes to try to get football into line with nearly all other sports in Europe and indeed employment laws as a whole.

This rule only applies to those under 28 who have a contract of 4 or more years and have served 3 of them OR those over 28 who are 2 years into a 3 year deal or more and notice must be served within 15 days of the end of the club's (the player is owned by) season.

I wouldnt like it included in future FM's until the full implications are known. Rumours are abound yes, but how many will actually try it?

it's old rule anyway.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by isuckatfm:

I jumped from CM 01/02 to FM 2006, can anyone remember in which version this 'protected contract' rule was removed? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The rule was present in FM'05.

This would lead to ridiculous player transfers

Defoe would be able to buy his way out of Tottenham, Gerrard could scoot to Chelsea, Cashley Cole could move once more to god knows where and Lampard could move to Barca. Ronaldo(if he chose to)could move to Real for 11 million. Ridiculous. The whole footballing world would turn on its head.

It may well happen though. Scary, but it's inevitable I reckon.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mitja:

webster clause would just destroy all small clubs/countries. what's the point of having contracts then? only big clubs will be for it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

the point of contracts is that the player will have to buy out of it which means giving the money to the club.

although i still dont think it should happen.

who cares if it makes them feel like slaves. their millionare slaves

This doesn't strike me as anything like as big a deal as some people are making out. If you have to be about to enter the final year of your contract then that already makes it not applicable in many cases and by the time it is applicable the player is only a year away from being able to move for free anyway.

If it is just as simple as the player basically paying the club an ammount equal to his final year's wages in order to leave a year early then that is no big deal to me. If a player wants to leave that much with only 1 year left on his contract then most clubs would be looking to cash in anyway to avoid losing the player for free 12 months down the line.

Or am I missing something?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by postal postie:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mitja:

webster clause would just destroy all small clubs/countries. what's the point of having contracts then? only big clubs will be for it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

the point of contracts is that the player will have to buy out of it which means giving the money to the club.

although i still dont think it should happen.

who cares if it makes them feel like slaves. their millionare slaves </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

not all are milionars. they are in PL or serie a. I just wanted to say that a club like arsenal would be able to buy someone from croatian league for 200.000, but he might be worth 20 milion, for example. and that's what I was trying to say.

I definatly saw the 'unprotected' feature in 03/04 im sure.

Not sure whether i saw it in FM05.

It was the way i signed most of my players, as much as it was unrealistic.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">originally posted by Amaroq:-

The rule was present in FM'05. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks

From a gaming perspective I'm glad it got removed because planning for the future and managing a squad was a nightmare on CM 01/02 with the protected contract rule. I don't care if it was realistic or not, all i know is it annoyed the hell out of me as I could never keep a squad together what with most players thinking they were first team players and refusing to sign new contracts because they hadn't played in 90% or so of matches.

Regardless of the real life implications I would be worried that if the coding in the game wasn't perfect and the player AI wasn't capable of making informed decisions, then you might have a scenario where every single player in the game who wasn't playing as many matches as they expected to would buy out their contract leading to a huge pool of free agents.

Plus in the real world the player would have to have the financial ability to buy out his contract (if a club weren't willing to do this as a proxy for a transfer fee) and since players don't have bank accounts in FM how would it judge this?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by jack.browne:

I definatly saw the 'unprotected' feature in 03/04 im sure.

Not sure whether i saw it in FM05.

It was the way i signed most of my players, as much as it was unrealistic. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It was a prelude to the rules now where you have to compensate a club for training a player under a certain age e.g. if you sign Daniel Carvalho from CSKa on a "free" you have to compensate CSKA £3.6 for training him for thelast few years.

It was mainly introduced because of the Leeds Chelsea debacle a few years back when Chelsea nicked a couple of their promising youth players without giving Leeds a penny.

The unprotected contract was the original form of this rule.

It wouldn't really turn the world on it's head.

It's no more then a player terminating his contract and you getting paid the ammount still owing but in reverse.

So if you terminated a player's contract, he was on £8k a week and had a year left, you'd owe him half a mill. If a player on £60k a week with two years left terminated his he'd owe you almost seven million.

Anyone doing so would need a HELL of a signing on fee to break even. It would just mean that in game and in life big players would need to be given long contracts which are updated every season to fail safe them buying out their contracts.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by isuckatfm:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">originally posted by Amaroq:-

The rule was present in FM'05. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks

From a gaming perspective I'm glad it got removed because planning for the future and managing a squad was a nightmare on CM 01/02 with the protected contract rule. I don't care if it was realistic or not, all i know is it annoyed the hell out of me as I could never keep a squad together what with most players thinking they were first team players and refusing to sign new contracts because they hadn't played in 90% or so of matches.

Regardless of the real life implications I would be worried that if the coding in the game wasn't perfect and the player AI wasn't capable of making informed decisions, then you might have a scenario where every single player in the game who wasn't playing as many matches as they expected to would buy out their contract leading to a huge pool of free agents.

Plus in the real world the player would have to have the financial ability to buy out his contract (if a club weren't willing to do this as a proxy for a transfer fee) and since players don't have bank accounts in FM how would it judge this? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The same is true of any "realism" addition - if it is coded/researched badly (e.g. team talks) it can have a massively detrimental effect on gameplay without adding any realism at all.

Presumably the same kind of code that is used to determine when a player slaps in a transfer request or declares he is going to leave on a Bosman can be used in a modified manner to determine which players want to avail themselves of this.

The financial aspect is an issue though relating to players not having bank accounts (it didn't stop them adding manager contracts in though)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Spagbol:

It wouldn't really turn the world on it's head.

It's no more then a player terminating his contract and you getting paid the ammount still owing but in reverse.

So if you terminated a player's contract, he was on £8k a week and had a year left, you'd owe him half a mill. If a player on £60k a week with two years left terminated his he'd owe you almost seven million.

Anyone doing so would need a HELL of a signing on fee to break even. It would just mean that in game and in life big players would need to be given long contracts which are updated every season to fail safe them buying out their contracts. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

defenetly it wouldn't turn the world around. rich clubs would become even richer and poor ones even poorer

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> originally posted by glamdring:-

The same is true of any "realism" addition - if it is coded/researched badly (e.g. team talks) it can have a massively detrimental effect on gameplay without adding any realism at all.

Presumably the same kind of code that is used to determine when a player slaps in a transfer request or declares he is going to leave on a Bosman can be used in a modified manner to determine which players want to avail themselves of this.

The financial aspect is an issue though relating to players not having bank accounts (it didn't stop them adding manager contracts in though) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fair point about the realism issue. I hadn't thought of using the whole Bosman/Transfer request mechanism.

TBH when I posted that I was remembering how on CM 01/02 I often found myself signing players purely because I feared my current squad players would refuse to sign a new contract and would get snapped up by another club leaving me with a depleted squad. What I remember was that the vast majority of players would refuse to sign contracts unless they were given first team status.

Then what would sometimes happen was the players whose contracts were now unprotected in my squad would end up sitting in my reserves like a cash sink hole as I couldn't get them to sign a new contract and no club had attempted to sign them as I had expected. It was just one giant headache that detracted from my enjoyment of the game.

It might have been realistic but it was still a pain in the arse

I agree that realism can be a pain in the backside to some styles of play, but it's what CM/FM has always tried to be about.

I remember the good old days in CM03/04 when I had a superb 100% Scottish squad at Ross County with a high proportion having come through our excellent youth system. I love keeping a squad together for ages and staying loyal to the players so that was great because despite how good they were they all stayed for years without wanting a transfer to a bigger club.

Wind forward to FM07 and half my Morton team are unhappy because they aren't getting first team football and most of the other half are unhappy because, since they are playing 1st team football and showing their silky skills, they now want to move to a bigger club...realistic certainly, but very very frustrating

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">originally posted by Spagbol:-

It wouldn't really turn the world on it's head.

It's no more then a player terminating his contract and you getting paid the ammount still owing but in reverse.

So if you terminated a player's contract, he was on £8k a week and had a year left, you'd owe him half a mill. If a player on £60k a week with two years left terminated his he'd owe you almost seven million.

Anyone doing so would need a HELL of a signing on fee to break even. It would just mean that in game and in life big players would need to be given long contracts which are updated every season to fail safe them buying out their contracts. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have to disagree with you here as it would have a huge impact on the transfer market, particularly if players adopt a mercenary approach. It would mean clubs would be able to bypass a player's current owners to buy them and players wishing to do so could offer themselves to the highest bidder. So instead of paying a transfer fee interested clubs would just offer the player a signing on fee that incorporates the buy out amount in it. Essentially the concept of the market value of a player would be redundant and clubs would be cornered into offering higher wages or risk losing a player for a value that does not represent their worth to the club.

Using your example of the player requiring 7 million to buy out his contract, what if that player was a world class international with a market value of 25 million. Don't you think any interested buying clubs would offer that 7 million to the player to allow him to buy out the contract rather than pay the 25 million asking price to the club?

Obviously my argument becomes redundant when market value = contract calculated value, but this is a rarity in modern football where the players are viewed as intangible assets.

This only kicks in when entering the final year of a contract though so, as I said earlier, why is it such a big deal? How many players are valued £25 million when they only have a year left on their contract and can leave for £0 at the end of that year?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">originally posted by glamdring:-

This only kicks in when entering the final year of a contract though so, as I said earlier, why is it such a big deal? How many players are valued £25 million when they only have a year left on their contract and can leave for £0 at the end of that year? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I didn't know it only applied to players with one year remaining. Some day I'll learn to get the facts straight before presenting an argument (some day, just not this one ).

One detail I've wondered about though is if it has effect on renewed contracts.

I mean, if a player signs a 5yr contract, he can be bought out after 3 years service. But what if he renews the contract after 2 years for 5 years? Will he be able to buy out after one extra year (3 years of total service) or three extra years (3 years of service according to last signed contract)?

If the latter, clubs could try and insure themselves by trying to renew contracts early. In that case, there won't be much change (though longer contracts would become rare and regular renewed shorter contracts more frequent).