Football contract questions

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In professional football, player contracts are undoubtedly a hidden topic, and every team treats them as top secrets. Each team has its own style of signing contracts. Generally speaking, there are often four important "mysterious clauses" in player contracts. Many strange phenomena are related to these four clauses.

One of the mysterious clauses: signing fee

A player's income generally consists of these parts: basic annual salary, floating bonuses, advertising endorsements, etc. What cannot be ignored is that a player often has a "signing fee" during the transfer and contract renewal process. A few examples: When Arsenal (official Weibo official website data) signed Chamakh, the British media disclosed that there was a signing fee of 4 million pounds; in addition, the Russian media revealed that in order to induce Eto'o to join, the Anzhi team paid a huge annual salary in addition to Offered a signing fee of up to 7 million euros.

The signing fee is an open secret in European football. The existence of "signing fees" has caused a strange phenomenon in football: the "contract renewal soap opera" controversy. When many players negotiate contract extensions with their clubs, the two sides have little disagreement on annual salary, but they argue over signing fees, which ultimately leads to the failure of many contract extensions. In addition, many players do not hesitate to wait until their contracts expire to seek free transfers. Players who transfer on free transfers are often more likely to receive high signing fees. The most recent example is Juventus (official Weibo data) signing Llorente. Many media confirmed that Juventus (Weibo official website data) beat competitors to get Llorente and provided a large signing fee.

Mysterious Clause 2: Salary Tax

Each major league has different habits. When talking about players' annual salary and weekly salary, it is often necessary to pay attention to whether the salary is before tax or after tax, and whether it is the club or the player himself who pays the tax.

In leagues such as Serie A (Weibo topic), player contracts stipulate the annual salary after tax. For example, when Inter Milan sold Sneijder (Weibo data), giant clubs in urgent need of midfielders such as Manchester United (Weibo data) thought Sneijder was too expensive, causing the Dutch core to lag behind in the Turkish league. Why? It seems that Sneijder's annual salary is only 6 million euros, which is nothing compared to the many sky-high weekly salaries in the Premier League (Weibo topic), but Sneijder's annual salary is after tax. If he wants to get the same income in the Premier League, the weekly salary It will exceed 200,000 pounds, which is why Manchester United rejected Sneijder.

There was also a joke about salary tax: when Arshavin signed with Arsenal, he was talking about pre-tax income. At that time, the Czar did not know about the heavy taxes in the Premier League. It was only after he joined Arsenal that he discovered that his annual salary was deducted from taxes. It was lower than when he was in Russia, and the Tsar once complained to the Russian media.

In addition, due to different tax rates in different regions, some teams get "extra competitiveness" due to low tax rates. A typical example is Monaco. The preferential tax rate policy is an important reason why the upstart Ligue 1 provides Falcao with a huge annual salary of 18 million. Another financial owner, Paris Saint-Germain (data from Weibo), suffered a huge loss due to the astonishing tax rate. An example is Ibrahimovic. The Swede is known as the "world's number one" in annual salary before tax, reaching 48 million euros. However, under France's heavy taxes, Ibrahimovic's after-tax income is only about 13 million. If Paris provides an annual salary of 18 million after tax, the tax it needs to bear will exceed 50 million, while the various surcharges paid by Monaco for Falcao are less than one million. What an astonishing contrast!

Mysterious Clause Three: Appearance Fee

In player contracts, in addition to basic annual salary, the existence of various bonus clauses also makes players' income flexible. Among them, "appearance fee" is undoubtedly important. According to the British "Mail", the average single-game appearance fee for all Premier League players reached 5,000 pounds four years ago. Four years later, this number is undoubtedly even more astonishing. Considering that this figure is an "average", it is not unusual for star players to receive tens of thousands of pounds in single-game bonuses. Rich teams play 6-70 league, Champions League (Weibo topic), and cup games in a season, and the appearance fees may amount to millions. This is an important income that cannot be ignored for players.

The existence of appearance fee clauses has caused a turmoil in football: players who find it difficult to appear often cause trouble. A typical example is Inter Milan. "Total Market" pointed out that the Nerazzurri is a team with relatively high player appearance fees. Therefore, some of Inter Milan's non-absolute main players such as Balotelli, Thornton, Pazzini and others have been unwilling to join the team in recent years. Sitting on the bench caused some trouble, and the club had no choice but to sell him for the sake of unity. One important reason is the appearance fee.

Mysterious Clause Four: Loyalty Bonus

There is a strange phenomenon in today’s football: some stars really want to transfer and leave the team, but the two parties cannot agree on the price, so they transfer It is hoped that the next team will force this star to surrender and let him leave the team at a low price by going on strike and submitting a transfer application. But the stars have been reluctant to do so, and many "transfer soap operas" have been delayed again and again, or even stopped. A typical example this summer is Liverpool (official Weibo data) and Suarez.

Liverpool recently publicly suggested that if Suarez does not want to stay with the team, then please submit a transfer application himself. But Suarez was unwilling. The reason is the "Loyalty Bonus". The loyalty bonus stipulated in the player contract, in most cases means that the player can get this bonus if he does not actively propose a transfer during the contract period. Loyalty bonuses for star players can reach millions or even exceed tens of millions, so no matter how much these players want to transfer, they are unwilling to submit an application and lose such an income.

The "Loyalty Award" has led to a strange phenomenon in today's football: when players want to transfer, they will promote it through the media. The players themselves always refuse to talk about it. At the beginning of the century, Ibrahimovic walked out of training and left Arsenal Jax (Weibo data) Such things rarely happen. This is often because the player wants to move but also wants to receive a loyalty bonus.