In the recent days a few good players in Holland were sold by their Dutch Teams to foreign teams. A few examples:
- Ryan Babel from Ajax Amsterdam to Liverpool for about € 17.5 mio.
- Wesley Sneijder from Ajax Amsterdam to Real Madrid for about € 27 mio.
- Royston Drenthe from Feijenoord Rotterdam to Real Madrid for about € 13 mio.
They couldn't be kept due to the money involved.
In principle I find it very bad, because most of the times, the Dutch teams have a very good youth system, which educates talented players until the ranks of the pro teams. Then after about 2-3 years the are picked up by the rich foreign teams. E.g. Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona or AC Milan, etc, etc.
It is also bad, because IMHO the transfer dealine ends only at the end of August. This should be until the end of July. It must be very frustrating for the coaches who are building a team in the pre-season period and once the important games are on the schedule, they can start all over again, because their better players are being bought by the rich clubs.
In most countries they leagues have already started and some teams have to play qualifications games for various European cups, like the Champions League.
Look at the players in my example. Sneijder and Babel both gone and tomorrow Ajax plays their first match to qualify for the CL. Now they have to do it without a couple of key-players.
Moreover, quite a few of those youngsters are being traded by so-called personal managers who fill their pockets big time when they complete a transfer. Very often a young player ends up on the bench, because his new team has loads of other good players available.
Last but not least, it is bad for the teams like Ajax or Feijenoord inmy example, because it is known to other clubs that they have a lot of money to spend, and these teams ask exhorbitant amounts for players not really worth it.
Here in Holland, being a small country, the teams have only a small share of TV rights income. Our commercial market is so much smaller and teams cannot pay the super salaries like the teams in England, Spain or Italy can afford. Some teams in our first league have a season budget of less than € 10 mio.
I give Holland as an example, because I live here, follow football closely and I think we have an above average number of real good players abroad. But you can say the same about the Scandinavian countries for example.
A solution in my opinion could be as follows:
- Reduce the total number of foreign players per team to 6 or 7, of which a maximum of 5 may be on the pitch at any given moment.
- Introduce salary maximums. I think this is already a common thing in most North American sports. I don't know exactly how it works, but maybe some US BM's know more about that.
In the end it will also be better for the national teams, especially those like England or Spain, where they now suffer, because key positions on the teams are taken by foreigners.
I am curious to learn how other BM's look at this matter.