Angry Sepp Blatter raps Andy Webster ruling as ‘very damaging’ for game

Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, yesterday reacted angrily to Wednesday’s ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland on the Andy Webster case, a decision widely seen as giving footballers strident new rights to break their contracts with their clubs.

Webster had invoked Article 17 of Fifa’s statutes, which allowed him to walk out on Heart of Midlothian for Wigan Athletic in 2006, and CAS upheld Webster’s right to do so when the case went to appeal on Wednesday. The episode is being viewed as Bosman-like in its significance, though Blatter has condemned CAS’s ruling as “very damaging” for football.

Webster had appealed against a fine of £625,000, which Fifa’s dispute resolution chamber had imposed for breaking his contract with Hearts, and CAS agreed with him. The Webster case, heavily backed by Fifpro, the global players’ union, means players can now legally choose to terminate their contracts with clubs, even if they still have one, two or even three years still to run.

Blatter yesterday railed against the ruling, claiming it to be a distortion of Article 17. “The decision which CAS took is very damaging for football and is a pyrrhic victory for those players and their agents, who toy with the idea of rescinding contracts before they have been fulfilled,” Blatter said. “CAS did not properly take into consideration the specificity of sport as required by Article 17, paragraph 1, of the regulations on the status and transfer of players.

“Because of this unfortunate decision, the principle of contractual stability, as agreed in 2001 with the European Commission as part of the new transfer regulations and which restored order to the transfer system, has been deemed less important than the short-term interests of the player.”

Under Blatter, a lawyer himself, moves will now be afoot inside Fifa to rectify Article 17 and to attempt to safeguard the sanctity of players’ contracts. Fifa insist that breaking a contract without just cause remains “unjustified” and is concerned that, in future, any player in the same situation as Webster will know the cost of buying themselves out of a deal.

Moreover, Fifa said, agents will now tout players to clubs, revealing the price for signing players under contract on the basis of salary.

Fraser Wishart, the chief executive of PFA Scotland, who guided Webster from the outset of his case, said: “I laugh when I hear all this stuff about ‘player power’. The truth is that players still have relatively little power. All Article 17 does is ensure that clubs can no longer put a totally subjective and often mad price on the head of a player who is coming towards the end of his contract.

“Fifa in their own codes comply with CAS’s rulings. So I don’t really see what all the fuss is about.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk