Thursday December 5th 2024
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Luke Jackson
The Children’s Commissioner and campaigning organisation RealGrassroots have filed complaints with the UK’s competition watchdog about Scottish football’s treatment of young players.
The complaints to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) challenge Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) rules that restrict youth players’ freedom to move between club academies. These rules violate UK competition law and amount to economic exploitation of children, which breaches their human rights. Specifically, the rules:
– set caps on how many youth players one club can recruit from another;
– let clubs unilaterally extend the ‘registration period’ where players are locked into their current club;
– set implausibly high fees that any new club has to pay up-front to bring in a player from another club’s academy; and
– ban players and their parents from approaching other clubs about a move.
This all amounts to an anti-competitive ‘no poach’ deal where clubs agree not to compete to recruit youth players from each other. They can hold youth players hostage instead of trying to retain them on the basis of quality training, gametime, and prospects of turning professional. There is a severe power imbalance with children forced to accept one-sided and unfair terms. Long-established precedent confirms that these practices violate UK competition law.
Similar rules have already been found to restrict competition for adult players in a recent case brought against FIFA by Lassana Diarra. Child footballers are no less entitled to the law’s protection.
This long-running issue affecting children was first raised in a petition at the Scottish Parliament in 2010. The Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee produced a report in 2020 after hearing more than a decade of evidence, including from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner. The Committee made clear recommendations to remove the worst of the SFA and SPFL restrictions. However, despite assurances to the Commissioner’s office, the SFA has not implemented those changes.
Nick Hobbs, Head of Advice and Investigations at the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, said:
“The rights of child footballers have been a deep concern for the office for many years now – it’s an issue that has spanned the work of three Children’s Commissioners, and the Scottish Parliament has made its views very clear on what is required of the SFA.
“Going to the CMA was not a decision we took lightly; there was simply no other choice. We have tried to work with the SFA over many years, and they have been consistently reluctant to resolve this. They’ve made promises to us that do not seem to have been delivered.
“The rules have been scrutinised in the Scottish Parliament and the SFA has ignored the Parliament’s recommendations. They have made the odd concession but have persistently sought to kick the can down the road, so we have taken the only option we could. The CMA is the only body with the authority and the legal powers to make the SFA and SPFL change the rules.
“The current rules give child footballers less protection, and less control over their own lives, than adult professionals. There is a massive power imbalance between them and the clubs they sign for which can amount to economic exploitation – this is a fundamental breach of their human rights. The office’s role is to protect and promote children’s rights and this action will, we believe, ultimately result in better rights protections for young footballers.”
William Smith, co-founder of RealGrassroots, said: “Young players are the lifeblood of football. Yet under the SFA and SPFL, Scottish football has been allowed to deteriorate, with fewer and fewer players turning professional, despite record numbers playing youth and grassroots football.
“The rules for young footballers are profoundly unjust. The clubs treat children as commodities that their current clubs own. Young players have no freedom to move to the best club for them, and if their current club treats them badly, they have no ability to do anything about it. This puts real strain on children and their families who make great sacrifices for the chance to secure a professional contract.
“The SFA and SPFL have ignored everyone’s concerns, while they continue to damage Scottish football. Politicians are prepared to spend millions of pounds debating these issues without doing anything to protect our game and our children. At some point, someone has to take responsibility and say ‘no more’.”
Scott Robertson, co-founder of RealGrassroots, said: “We have seen many examples of our professional clubs parading players as young as ten years old in front of press stands signing registration forms. The kids, and some parents, think it’s the road to riches without being informed of the implications.
“Clubs have nothing to lose by signing player upon player, they do not have to commit to the child, it is a merry-go-round. The ones with the most promise are then held on a registration form for three consecutive seasons without needing to have the player agree. The youngster is locked in. That cannot be right.
“Rather than promote competition and grow our game, these rules have done untold damage to Scottish football. The clubs place their interests and profit margins before kids.”
Kieran Gibbons, a player who came through the SFA’s Club Academy Scotland system, said: “Getting rid of these rules is a no-brainer. From 11-13 years old, I was, unbeknown to me, contracted to a senior club’s academy. The training facilities were not the best and didn’t even have changing rooms.
“I was travelling a distance and had to come straight from school and had grown tired of this and when the time came to sign on for the following season I asked to leave. I had no other club and intended going back to my boys’ club. They were not happy but agreed, but held onto the registration retaining me which again I knew nothing about.
“This came to light shortly afterwards when other senior clubs contacted me and invited me in for a trial. It was only when they enquired to sign me that they were informed of a £9,000 fee from the senior club I had just left. At that time no one was able or willing to pay that for a 13-year-old, who may or may not make it to professional level.”
Representing RealGrassroots, Alexander Waksman, Partner at gunnercooke LLP, said: “We are proud to act for RealGrassroots in challenging the SFA and SPFL rules on youth football. It is difficult to conceive of a more obvious violation of competition law. Locking youth footballers into their clubs has frozen competition to recruit and retain youth talent, and has forced children into accepting one-sided and unfair terms. The effects of this conduct are clear: lost talent and a Scottish youth football system that the SFA itself knows is dysfunctional.”
Mahesh Madlani, Associate at gunnercooke LLP, added: “It has been clear for decades that the rules governing football have to comply with competition law. Cases like Superleague confirm that football is not exempt. And the recent Diarra case makes it crystal clear that players have as much right to the protections of competition law as any other group. In bringing this complaint, the law is firmly on our side.”
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