An alarmingly familiar drama is threatening to play itself out once again at Villa Park as the papers deem Christian Benteke’s departure from Villa a fait accompli this summer.
Is the brightest spark of a dismal season set to be snuffed out before the Villans even get a chance to become attached to the player? I find it all bit disgraceful. Here in a nutshell is everything wrong with the game, and it’s astonishing for its predictability as much as anything else.
Apparently, when you’re a player, the basic facts are that a contract is a wonderful thing if you’re not very good. And a contract is ultimately a meaningless hurdle if you are good. Four-year deal? Great business for the Habib Beyes of the world. A sad joke on fans when it comes to the Bentekes of the world.
It’s one thing for a player entering into the final season of his contract to be looking elsewhere, like Ashely Young. It’s another thing for a player who hasn’t even finished the first season of his deal. “What deal?” we might legitimately ask.
Moreover, why can’t you get rid of a player who’s underperforming if you can’t keep a player who is performing? What is it with these one-way contracts? They only mean something if the player decides they’re in his best interests.
Now, I’ve got no idea what Benteke is really thinking, as it’s just been his agent talking. And of course I understand the conventional wisdom regarding the futility of trying to hang on to a player who wants to take a better deal somewhere else. I also acknowledge he was apparently willing to force a move to come to us. Perhaps we’re simply getting what we deserve. It’s the football food chain.
Perhaps there’s no recourse other than to get as much as you can for a player who wants away (see Barry, Gareth). You slap a big valuation on him and hope for the best. But if players can force a move when they’re doing well, then they should be easier to get rid of when they’re not.
The better solution would be to institute a salary cap, which means that teams have to figure out how to fit a player in. They have to generally give something up to balance the numbers. They can’t just keep luring players with lucrative deals because there’s an upper limit.
The goal shouldn’t just be saving clubs from themselves, it should be to strike a more competitive balance. It’s better for the game and better for the fans. Holding a team within its means only means that the structural advantages of certain clubs are locked into place.
But of course, a salary cap in football is about as likely as me working out a viable faster-than-light propulsion system this evening.
So of course in February, with 12 games to play (which is roughly a third of season), we’re treated to headlines about which club is going to land Benteke in the summer regardless of whether Villa stay up. It’s insult to injury.
The flip side, obviously, is that Villa will make money on the player. Which, theoretically, means that if a team is clever at discovering high-value players it can keep using the proceeds from transfer fees to raise its income and invest in more bargains. And if you get enough good players in, you might actually be able to rise up the table, get in the Champions League and hang onto the majority of them.
But as we can see with Arsenal, that’s easier said than done. And while we might laud Spurs’ acumen in the market, they’re not going to win the Premier or Champions League (if they do qualify). Yes, they’re better than us. But they’re still not good enough. Arsene Wenger obviously knows what he’s doing and has an eye for a player. But he’s in the hot seat for going years without silverware at a club that not so long ago went undefeated. It can be difficult to keep coming up with a winning hand when you’re under constant pressure to keep up with those who face no limits.
Barry, Young, Milner…Players we wanted keep, but ultimately couldn’t. Stewart Downing? Well, sometimes you do take the money and run.
Maybe we stay up and keep Benteke for another year. If he continues on the way he’s started, that’s as long as we can realistically hope for. And maybe it ends up being for the best and we get 3-5 players of similar quality in exchange.
And if we stay up, then maybe we can be grateful for Benteke’s contribution and accept the concept floated by his agent that the revenue generated is the reward for the opportunity we extended, rather than the player’s “loyalty” or services.
However it ends up, I do know that I’m getting sick of business as usual in football.
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