World Football: How the Transfer System Has Defeated Itself

A lot of my recent articles have almost been ramblings about how pathetic I feel the media has become, or how transfers may not mean everything in football. This article may sound a bit redundant in terms of the tone, but the more I think about this, the more ironic I find it.

In one of my previous articles, Saraswathi Sirigina (or Sarah) asked a very pertinent question: What are transfers supposed to achieve?

I found that a very interesting question, mainly because I'm sure that most managers today wouldn't be able to answer it themselves.

I can relate the transfer system and economics in a certain way. I remember reading about demand and supply, and how in the earlier centuries, people weren't proficient at producing everything, just like how not all football teams have all the required players.

Hence, there was a need to trade whatever the people needed in exchange for what they produced. That started the whole system of an economy and "a demand-and-supply system."

Similarly, the transfer system evolved due to the fact that clubs would "buy" the players they needed in exchange for money. So, effectively, in the transfer market, football players are commodities. They have a price, a demand, and an owner.

That was the idea, in any case. The irony is that now, the footballers have everything in their own hands. They are the ones that decide whether they want to stay, leave, or stay committed "for the moment."

They move to a club and say, "I'm very happy to have joined this club, it's a very proud moment in my career," and then two years later say, "I didn't really enjoy my time in the city, playing football, and living in the city at the same time made me tired."

Those two statements were made by one player, and are not made up at all.

The transfer system was put in place so that clubs could acquire the players they felt could produce goals, assists, or maybe add some defensive stability on the pitch. To answer Sarah's question, the clubs are a jigsaw puzzle that have to be completed by assembling players from both within and outside of them.

Unfortunately, just like consumerism is fuelling potential economic disasters, the sheer amount of transfer activity can ruin many a club.

It has already ruined one club to my knowledge. Leeds United were Champions League semifinalists not so long ago. Expectations grew to such an extent that loans were made to invest in an expensive squad.

Unknown players like Seth Johnson were bought for £7 million pounds, and when the expectations were not met, Leeds United were doomed to fail. They are now in League One and are trying to get back into the Championship.

I'm sure that it wasn't just the transfer activity that led to Leeds' demise in the Premier League, but it was a major factor. Unscrupulous buying after a couple of seasons' success was a recipe for disaster.

The transfer system was put in place so that clubs could sign what they needed. Instead, clubs want to sign players left, right, and centre and leave them high and dry after they realize that there was, in fact, no use in signing them in the first place.

Players like Winston Bogarde (who infamously earned £40,000 a week at Chelsea), Andriy Shevchenko, Nicolas Anelka (when he signed for Real Madrid), and so many more have wrecked their own careers by simply making poor choices.

The clubs also dished out a considerable amount of money for these players and got very less "value for money," before selling them on for knock-down prices.

Conversely, when they're doing well, players demand moves from their clubs just to earn more money. When they put in a transfer-request, all the clubs can do is try to make a large profit by selling their stars.

By providing clubs and managers with quick fixes, the transfer system is doing some real damage to the footballing world. When people that run the sport like Sepp Blatter effectively hand all the power to the players, you can't help but think what might have been if clubs weren't allowed to transfer players unless they were out of contract.

It might have not been the perfect situation, but at least some clubs could have been saved, and some players could have fulfilled their potential. Some players might have not left a bitter taste in fans' mouths by declaring their wish to leave at the end of every season, only for them to stay and play for the club that they wanted to leave a few weeks back.

The saddest thing is that the fans, who devote their time, money, and energy towards supporting these players and clubs, are the ones that suffer. They see their heroes on their knees (like I've seen Thierry Henry in the past year) or see their beloved clubs fall apart after all the "transfer frenzy."

In a certain sense, the transfer system may have simply defeated its own raison d'être.