Crouch to buy out remaining contract

[machiavelli]

From the People

Crouch set to say 'bye, buy Kop'
EXCLUSIVE
By Dave Kidd

Peter Crouch is considering buying out the final year of his Liverpool contract and moving abroad to avoid another year on the Anfield bench.

The England striker is furious that Kop boss Rafa Benitez has slapped a £15million price tag on his head, despite rarely featuring in his first-team plans.

Now Crouch, 27, is weighing up the option of becoming the first high-profile English player to buy out his own contract - a move which would cost him around £3m.

Under FIFA-adopted EU law, that would mean Crouch becoming a free agent. He would not be able to join another English club, but a foreign club could secure his services for nothing and give him a big wage rise and signing-on fee.

Crouch's representatives will meet Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry this week and still hope the club will allow Crouch to move for far less than £15m as he has only one year left on his contract.

Parry is said to be embarrassed by Benitez's claims that Liverpool want £15m for the player. It is believed that Benitez's public claims that Crouch has been offered a new Anfield contract, but refused to sign it, are also incorrect.

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Portsmouth remain front runners to sign Crouch but Aston Villa are also interested along with Spanish club Villarreal.

Pompey boss Harry Redknapp wants to re-sign Crouch, a player he has twice sold in the past, during his first spell at Pompey and when he flogged him to Liverpool for £7m following Southampton's relegation from the Premier League three years ago.

I know the people isnt very reliable, but i have thought about this before, Its obvious he wants to play more football, and in this formation we play he isnt going to get more first team football, without injurys to other players. We are asking 15mill(which obviously is the starting negotion bid), but what if we still continue to price him out, I'm sure he wouldnt want to do it to liverpool, as he loves the club, but he has to think about himself and his future at england. I'm sure he will make that money back used to buy the contract out in a signing on fee.

[dww]

From Wikipedia

Webster ruling

Wigan was the first club to take advantage of this new ruling as they signed Andy Webster from Hearts in August of 2006. Initially Hearts was slow to react to the signing, but when Webster was loaned to Hearts' rival Rangers, Hearts took legal action. Hearts believed that the £625,000 either Andy Webster or Wigan should pay was not adequate compensation. It was well short of the four million pound transfer Hearts wanted. This amount was based on the so-called 'going rate' in the transfer market of a player of his calibre. FIFPRO, the global players’ football union, supported both Webster's and Wigan's case because of the implications of a ruling in the player's favour.

The case was finally brought before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland to clarify the wording and legality of Article 17. The court ruled on 30 January 2008 that Webster was free to sign with another club from a different national league and that, according to Article 17, he need only pay £150,000 for leaving the club for Wigan with a year remaining on his contract. This amount is generally cited as being the amount that Hearts would have owed him had he remained with the club.

This ruling in fact has established an addendum to Article 17 allowing a player who is between the ages of 23 and 28 to move in the final year of a four or five year contract provided he hands in a request to the club no more than 15 days after the end of the previous season. The club would be entitled to compensation, but only equalling the amount of the final year's wages as per the contract. In most cases that would be far less than an agreed transfer fee. In addition, the player would have to move to a club that was not in the same association as his current club. Players who are older then 28 are only required to fulfill two years on a contract no matter the length of the contract. At such a point they can opt out of the rest of their contract by paying the remainder owed to them to the club they are under contract to.

Implications of Webster ruling

It is initially unclear how quickly this ruling will affect the transfer market in international football. The January 2008 market included no Webster-like transfers and fees continued to be in millions of pounds. The summer of 2009 does contain a few test cases that could demonstrate the new transfer market, but most of those involved are so tied to their clubs that it would be unlikely that they would jump their club for one in another nation (Frank Lampard of Chelsea, a fixture to the West London club's starting eleven, is one regularly cited test case, and Michael Owen who currently is with Newcastle is another). Dimitar Berbatov, who currently plays for Tottenham, is also often cited, but he does not turn 28 until the spring of 2009.(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle3279498.ece)

It has been suggested that the top 25% of players would most benefit from the ruling, but if the results of free agency in American sports are any indication of the future changes such a ruling could bring to European football, spectators should see a growing wealth in the younger players who have promise and the middle class footballer who can play after age 28 as well. Growth of the minimal salary and the salaries of players who have more than five years of service in American sport increased twentyfold in the first ten years of free agency.

What is clear is that there could be a challenge to smaller clubs. If international scouting continues at its current pace, these clubs could be looking at losing young stars prematurely to foreign clubs. Because of this, smaller clubs may unload younger stars sooner than they had wanted, and thus get less for these diamonds in the rough, because of the threat of losing a player to an international rival. It may be that small clubs will find themselves less likely to be able to support themselves with transfer fees and may have to revert to pre-1995 ways of keeping their club afloat.

Of concern is the implication for clubs in non-European markets which have a combination of good talent and weak local currencies. For instance the African Nations Cup overlaps the European transfer window. A talented African player can be induced to terminate his contract without cause and the benefiting European Club could acquire an excellent player for a pittance. Such was the case of Essam Al Hadari who was the first African based player to attempt to use this clause to join FC Sion of Switzerland after helping Egypt win the African Nations Cup. His attempt to terminate his contract failed on a technicality since he did not give his club the required 15 day notice. Articles 17 may thus pose grave consequences for South American and Africa clubs.

[dww]

Personally I think it far more likely he will be sold. I would imagine that if this has any source at all it is his agent trying to get Benitez to reduce his valuation in order to facilitate a move after Rafa said he was willing to let him sit on the bench if he didn't get a £15m offer.

[machiavelli]

I think so too, From what i have seen peter seems a very nice and resonable guy, who i think loves liverpool and loves the fans, so this would be the last possible resort, something as you say, to be used as to get what he thinks is a reasonable transfer price

[RedsFan83]

**** the whining cunt if he is gonna play this game, he's not all that anyway! useful but hardly gonna displace torres is he?! rafa saved/made the lad's career so he should be a bit more grateful to him and to liverpool as a whole then getting all pissy.

crouch hasn't been the same since he broke into the england team - gone a bit too big headed for my liking. i would like him to stay if he stops this attitude, but if he wants to keep it up he can do one

[dww]

Calm down, we don't even know if this is coming from the player or is just press speculation.

I think his on pitch and in interview attitude has been exemplary. I think he is being put in a bit of a corner by Rafa and the club and I don't really think any of the quotes that can be directly attributed to him should be held against him so far.

[Exiled_red]

If he wants to leave and the club are putting an unrealistic valuation on him then he's entitled to look at his options. People seem to be having a go at him for it which I feel is unfair, personally I'd love all our players to want to stay at Liverpool whatever their situation as long as they're required by the manager, but that is unrealistic. We would be happy if some other player were happy to buy out his contract to come here, so we must accept that our players are entitled to do the same

[EwarWoo]

**** the whining cunt if he is gonna play this game, he's not all that anyway! useful but hardly gonna displace torres is he?! rafa saved/made the lad's career so he should be a bit more grateful to him and to liverpool as a whole then getting all pissy.

crouch hasn't been the same since he broke into the england team - gone a bit too big headed for my liking. i would like him to stay if he stops this attitude, but if he wants to keep it up he can do one

He's not playing this game though. He's privately considerring buying out his contract after having these games played with him. Can't blame the lad.

He's been treated badly and backed into a corner. Agree to stay and play sod all football or I'll price you out so you have to stay anyways.

Can you really blame him for considerring it?

And as for whining cunt, well, he stayed relatively positive all the way up to the end of the season when he became obvious he could **** solid gold and still wouldn't be wanted as anything other than an occasional bench warmer. Longer than most would I suspect and even then he didn't go too far.

And Rafa didn't save his career. He would have done well wherever he went. The first season he was given a lot of faith yes, but only because we had no-one better. And the way he's been treated this season he owes us nothing.

And considerring he could pay out 3m and probably get double that back in a signing on bonus we're lucky he's only considerring and only when forced, despite this, speaks volumes about his attitude.

[bobbyfallon]

i dont like him or rate him.

but he has been treated unfairly

[Assassin]

i dont like him or rate him.

but he has been treated unfairly

Treated unfairly, he is an employee on a better wage per week than most on here get in a year.

Would you care to explain how you think he has been treated unfairly?

[bobbyfallon]

Treated unfairly, he is an employee on a better wage per week than most on here get in a year.

Would you care to explain how you think he has been treated unfairly?

i cant bring myself to have an arguement with someone defending crouch

in my opinion i think he should have had more game time from the bench when games were over eg 2-0 3-0 up.

other times he was left out of the squad completely and even worse players were in ahead of him.

now he wants to leave and feels his price tag is too dear - he is right he is worth **** all in my eyes, if we got what we paid 8m or so that would be about right

id be happy to see him go (if suitably replaced) but just hope he isnt forced to buy out his contract and leave on those terms.

he has scored some important goals for us and will always be thankful to the big fella for that.

all in all we are moving to a new level - back to our old level and players of his abilty become surplus to requirments unfortunatly

[fred_plasticine]

If he wants to leave and the club are putting an unrealistic valuation on him then he's entitled to look at his options. People seem to be having a go at him for it which I feel is unfair, personally I'd love all our players to want to stay at Liverpool whatever their situation as long as they're required by the manager, but that is unrealistic. We would be happy if some other player were happy to buy out his contract to come here, so we must accept that our players are entitled to do the same

why do you think a valuation of 15 mill is unrealistic for a full england international with a goals/games ratio which is a good as anyones?
given the current over-inflated prices for english players that price tag is reasonable. he's only 27 and big name in the game.
yes he's contract's running out so he'll probably leave for less but anything less than 10 mill would be daylight robbery.

[Assassin]

i cant bring myself to have an arguement with someone defending crouch

in my opinion i think he should have had more game time from the bench when games were over eg 2-0 3-0 up.

other times he was left out of the squad completely and even worse players were in ahead of him.

now he wants to leave and feels his price tag is too dear - he is right he is worth **** all in my eyes, if we got what we paid 8m or so that would be about right

id be happy to see him go (if suitably replaced) but just hope he isnt forced to buy out his contract and leave on those terms.

he has scored some important goals for us and will always be thankful to the big fella for that.

all in all we are moving to a new level - back to our old level and players of his abilty become surplus to requirments unfortunatly

I aint defending him far from it. My point is he is an employee and his employers can use him as they wish as long as it within the employment rules and regulations.

I agree with you to a certain with regard to the fact he could have had some more games. As you said he has scored some cracking and vital goals. But at the end of the day we have Torres who is second to none.

I would like to see us recoup more than we paid for him, who wouldnt. If he fells his price tag is too hiigh and he wants to buy himself out we are powerless to stop him

[EwarWoo]

why do you think a valuation of 15 mill is unrealistic for a full england international with a goals/games ratio which is a good as anyones?

We got 8m for Owen who was a full England international, considerred one of the leading strikers in the game, who was a regular starter for the team and who also had 1 year left on his contract.

I know the markets changed since then but not that much to make Crouch worth almost double.

I agree the clubs more important, sure. But I still don't think it's right to treat him this way. If we can't give him what he wants, regular play (and is that really a bad thing for him to want?) we should sell him for a reasonable price and part on good terms. If he's forced into buying himself out it would be hard to blamre him but it would leave a very bitter taste on all sides.

15m would possibly be fair even if on the hefty side if he had 3 years left, but with 1 year left it's silly.

[fred_plasticine]

We got 8m for Owen who was a full England international, considerred one of the leading strikers in the game, who was a regular starter for the team and who also had 1 year left on his contract.

I know the markets changed since then but not that much to make Crouch worth almost double.

I agree the clubs more important, sure. But I still don't think it's right to treat him this way. If we can't give him what he wants, regular play (and is that really a bad thing for him to want?) we should sell him for a reasonable price and part on good terms. If he's forced into buying himself out it would be hard to blamre him but it would leave a very bitter taste on all sides.

15m would possibly be fair even if on the hefty side if he had 3 years left, but with 1 year left it's silly.

i think there's bit of a gap between the valuation of a player and the actual transfer fee. rafa valuates him at 15 mill and that's basically the starting price for a "dutch auction" when several clubs are interested which means the price will be lowered until one of the clubs accepts it. in my opinion at least.