Two former Jags are out to destroy the transfer system

Tony Higgins and Bobby Barns are looking to transform the footballing landscape.

Tony Higgins has always been a man with a cause.

Since hanging up his boots 27 years ago, the former Hibs and Partick Thistle striker has flown the flag for players’ rights, first as Chairman of the Scottish PFA and now as the Vice-President of the European division of FIFPro, the world players’ union.

When it comes to fighting for what he believes to be right, he’s never been one to back down. And given the potential significance of the scrap he’s about to be pitched into, that’s just as well.

Along with FIFPro European division President and fellow ex-Thistle man Bobby Barnes, Higgins is about to find himself on the frontline of a union-led battle to destroy the transfer system as we know it.

It’s a system FIFPro believe is illegal. Should it be found to be so, the repercussions for football could be even bigger than the Bosman Ruling.

In effect, Higgins and Barnes would become the Jags who helped spike the global transfer system! FIFPro’s lawyers intend to present their case to the European Court of Justice within the next few months, and Higgins believes that case will be a strong one.

He says: “Generally, the transfer system employed by football doesn’t satisfy the needs of the game right across the board and certainly not the needs of the players.

“The view we’re taking is that the system presently only allows money to circulate at the very top of the game.

“But 99% of the players in the world are not Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, and most do not play in Europe’s top leagues.

“As a union, we’re seeing an increasing number of cases of players from all over the world going to FIFA to have disputes resolved, and 80% of cases or more are about players not being paid.

“So at one end of the scale there are massive transfer fees being paid, and at the other end there are an overwhelming number of cases being prepared by players who are being denied wages and it’s taking FIFA literally years to hear them.

“The system at the present time is not working because it’s driving a greater wedge between the elite clubs and everyone else, and it doesn’t deal effectively with the problems it poses further down the pyramid.

“The question for us is, in a European context, is it contrary to European Union law? We believe it is and that it needs to be challenged.”

So what do FIFPro want, and how will a transfer system that functions fairly, and legally, look?

“The Bosman Ruling established that players are workers,” says Higgins.“But still players are being denied their full rights in terms of their ability to move after a certain portion of their contract has elapsed.

“We understand that there have to be competition regulations because you don’t want players handing in their notice after two weeks.

“But when Andy Webster left Hearts with three years gone of a four-year deal in 2006 to sign for Rangers, we thought we’d had a precedent.

“That appeared to establish that the value of the remainder of a player’s contract would be the compensation to free him from it.

“But cases since that have come before the Court of Arbitration for Sport have left that uncertain. Often it’s been far higher, so players are reluctant to go there because they’re not sure what they’ll have to pay and it’s taking years to have their cases heard.

“That situation is driving transfer fees up and restricting players’ rights to move on, and that’s what we want to see changed.

“For example, if a player three years into a four or five-year contract wanted to leave his club to finish his career at a particular place, he couldn’t do it because it’s likely the compensation would be far too high.

“People argue that certain players are so wealthy that these guys shouldn’t have these rights. But if we can draw things back a bit, and players become more affordable at every level of the game, then that’s a positive.”

And what of the impact for clubs in this country?

Potentially, Higgins reckons there’s a chance a fairer transfer system could be the change that finally levels the playing field in favour of those clubs just outside of the elite one per cent.

For Celtic and perhaps, in time, Rangers a revamped transfer market might just be the thing that finally allows them to compete for better players and improve their European fortunes.

But without change, according to Higgins, it will be very difficult for any Scottish club to ever hit the heights on the continent again.

He said: “Generally, I don’t think there will be much impact on Scottish football because generally Scottish football does its business properly.

“But you’d hope if there are some controls introduced at an elite level, and they have to share more further down, things become a bit more compressed and hopefully that might allow Scottish clubs to prosper a wee bit.

“Our main clubs, Celtic and Rangers, are traditionally caught in that big-club-in-small-country syndrome.

“There are loads of clubs in that situation, and they have to try to cling onto the coat tails of the really big clubs.

“But the reality is that, under the present arrangement, they’ll never get near it unless something dramatically changes.”