Bohemians COO Daniel Lambert is calling for collective action from Irish clubs with a view to removing what he sees as relatively small buy-out clauses from contracts for young Irish talent, with Johnny Kenny’s recent transfer to Celtic being a recent example.
Speaking to Irish Independent Lambert has highlighted the insertion of cheap buy out clauses often demanded by agents as a big issue for clubs, with Irish newspaper highlighting Celtic’s €150,000 purchase of Johnny Kenny , alongside other deals viewed as undervaluing young Irish talent, such as Crystal Palace paying Drogheda United just €50,000 for Killian Phillips, and highlighting out-of-contract players such as James Brown, Georgie Kelly and Dan Cleary, who moved to British clubs for free, and the fact Bohemians only received compensation and not a transfer fee when Ross Tierney’s moved to Motherwell.
“The agents’ side of it is really worrying, you have so many agents trying to put clauses into contracts and I don’t think they benefit anyone but the agents. When the player does then move, they’re not getting the maximum value either. The club has to pay a bit more for the player.”
It is clear Lambert is not criticising Celtic, after all the club simply triggered a release fee in the player’s contract that all parties would have agreed to, but he clearly has concerns that young Irish talent is being picked off cheaply, something that undermines the clubs abilities to reinvest money in future talents as well as meaning the players themselves don’t necessarily get the benefit of their own worth when receiving their cut of the deal.
“I don’t think we should be seen as a market where you can pick up a player cheaply, and someone will take a punt on them. “The league is good enough that players can prove themselves here. We’ve seen the qualities of Ross Tierney when he moved, he’s been excellent.
“We need to have a stronger position as a league with agents to remove those clauses. I think it will benefit the players as well. It shouldn’t be about just trying to get the first move away. With FIFA compensation you don’t get paid what you are due, but no one’s ever challenged it, no one ever gets the full compensation.”
Daniel Lambert’s idea to counter the agent’s is for a tiered system of minimum transfer fees and a request for all other Irish clubs to show solidarity when it comes to minimum amounts inserted as standard in players contracts.
“If all clubs were to have a minimum amount, but it’s difficult to do, if someone breaks it all trust is lost but if you agreed, for instance, for Category 3 clubs, the fee is €200,000, Cat 2 it’s €300,000. And it’s not broken. Then suddenly that option disappears for the agent.
“If we’re going to improve academies, have better set-ups, and have full-time staff, when good players are moving you have to be rewarded for that. But it shouldn’t be to the detriment of the player, who should get better terms for themselves if clubs are paying a bit more for them.”
In fairness you can see Lambert’s position on this and his stance is probably a common sense approach to a difficult problem, but the difficulty he will have will be in persuading clubs to follow suit and players and their agents to agree to the deals.
For Celtic it would likely have made little difference, as we’d likely have paid more if we’d had to, for Johnny Kenny. However, clubs like Motherwell may have walked away from such deals, given they rarely pay much in the way of transfer fees, and as such a player looking to move to a higher standard of league may well be denied the opportunity.
In a market Celtic have been keen to shop in, as we’ve seen with recent League of Ireland transfers for Liam Scales and Johnny Kenny, it will be interesting to see how this one develops and the impact it will have on Celtic should they intend to shop in that market again over the next few transfer windows.
Niall J
