By Bulldog Drummond
Fox Sports is reporting that Arsenal have been fined around £50,000 and warned about its future conduct regarding transfers after the club inserted restricted sell-on clauses in transfer contracts.
This news follows the release of Fifa legal documents which have been seen by The Associated Press and relate to the departure of Chuba Akpom to PAOK Thessaloniki and Joel Campbell to the Italian club Frosinone Calcio.
The approach did not involve Arsenal saying directly that the players could not be sold to other British clubs (which would clearly be against Fifa rules and I would have broken restrictive trade agreements within the EU) but did say for Akpom that they would receive 40% of any fee if either player were later sold to clubs in England as opposed to 30% for any other country. For Campbell the fee was 30% instead of 25% if sold to an English club.
The clauses were apparently discovered in January this year. Fifa ruled that “by the mere existence of these clauses, Frosinone and PAOK FC are influenced by Arsenal in employment and transfer-related matters. The committee considers that the relevant clauses undoubtedly grant Arsenal the ability to influence in employment and transfer-related matters the independence, policies and the performance of PAOK FC and Frosinone’s teams.”
Arsenal objected to this and said it obviously had no influence on where the players might go next, and the Premier stated that they were satisfied there was no breach of any rules. But Fifa said that the clubs would likely be more inclined to sell to clubs which resulted in a lower pay back fee to Arsenal “as it would make the operation most profitable from a purely financial point of view.”
It would appear that someone particularly drew Fifa’s attention to the clauses. Joel Campbell recently transferred from Frosinone to Leon in Mexico, where he had been on loan.
Fifa also ruled that in relation to Arsenal “should such infringements occur again in the future, the committee would be left with no other option than to impose harsher sanctions.”
Contract details are closely guarded by clubs and when clubs see such detail they rarely release them, as they would always feel it would undoubtedly harm their ability to deal with a the selling club again. But it is thought the practice of variable pay-backs depending on the next destination is common, and someone decided to make Arsenal’s contract available to Fifa. That could be an ex player or it might be that the recent change of staff at Arsenal has resulted in one person previously within Arsenal revealing such details to harm Arsenal’s reputation. But to be clear, there is no evidence this is the case.
Moving onto today’s game, in our last piece (The Lawrence award for misleading information designed to put Arsenal down) the question was raised of the number of games won by four goals or more this season in the league.
To clarify the situation, here is the chart for this season among the top clubs for the number of games won by four or more goals this year…
- Manchester City 3
- Arsenal 2
- Liverpool 2
- Chelsea 1
- Manchester United 1
- Leicester 1
- Wolverhampton 0
- Tottenham Hots 0
So rather than, as suggested, Arsenal having won “only two” games in such a manner, the fact is “Arsenal, amazingly have twice won by four goals or more this year, a figure only surpassed by Manchester City.
And speaking of charts here is the list of clubs with the most injured players, and here again we are near the top…
- Burnley: 8
- Arsenal: 6
- Aston Villa: 6
- Everton: 6
- Newcastle United: 6
- Sheffield United 5
- WHU: 5
Here’s the table of injuries as always from Physioroom.com
| Player | Reason | Further Detail | Potential Return | Condition | Status |
| Calum Chambers | Knee Injury | Ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee.” | 29/08/2020 | None | Ruled Out |
| Mesut Ozil | Lower Back Injury | July 02: “Being assessed ahead of Wolverhampton match.” | 04/07/2020 | Late Fitness Test | 50% |
| Lucas Torreira | Ankle/Foot Injury | June 30: “Back in full training and being assessed ahead of Norwich.” | 04/07/2020 | None | 100% |
| Bernd Leno | Knee Injury | “Sustained moderate ligament sprain. Aiming to return to full training in four to six weeks.” | No Return Date | None | Ruled Out |
| Gabriel Martinelli | Knee Injury | “Successful arthroscopic procedure undertaken to repair a lesion in the cartilage of the left knee. Will not be available for the current schedule of remaining 2019/20 matches.” | No Return Date | None | Ruled Out |
| Pablo Mari Villar | Ankle/Foot Injury | June 30: “Sustained significant sprain to ankle ligaments. Has had a successful procedure to the injury this week. Aiming to return to full training in two to three months.” | No Return Date | Currently Being Assessed | Ruled Out |
Curiously on Friday evening Physioroom.com had no table up for Wolverhampton whom we play today so we can’t bring you their details. Maybe its a secret.
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