Fifa's stand should be applauded, not derided. The Gaël Kakuta case follows several episodes in which former clubs of talented young players, often in Italy, have howled with outrage that their teenagers have been "poached" or "robbed" by ruthless English clubs waving wads of money.
Chelsea have figured in a few of those accusations, as did Manchester United for signing Federico Macheda at 16; Lazio's president, Claudio Lotito, described the environment then as "a proper cattle market".
Yet the Italian clubs had no rights in those cases; they were vulnerable because of their own regulations, which prohibit young players from signing contracts until they are 18. With Kakuta, it was different. He was playing in France, for Lens, who say they had a contract with him. Fifa's Dispute Resolution Chamber moved in, to apply clear rules which enforce a solid principle: contracts in football must be honoured. Fifa's regulations set out that any club which signs a player who has a valid contract with another club is considered to have induced that breach of contract. The penalties – fines, suspensions and the one we had barely heard of until this: banning clubs from signing any more players for one or two transfer windows – all have precedents.
While English football reeled in shock and Chelsea, although not denying that Kakuta had a contract, protested that the penalty was "without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence", the Lens president, Gervais Martel, was taking it calmly.
"We expected this kind of decision," he said. "The player was under contract with us, and they came and stole him away."
Chelsea have said they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but in recent cases the CAS has encouraged Fifa by upholding its rulings. In January the CAS upheld a Fifa penalty against the Al Kuwait sports club which was very similar to the one imposed on Chelsea. Al Kuwait were found to have sacked an Estonian player, Vjatseslav Zahovaiko, in breach of his valid contract. The club was fined $120,000 (£73,500) and, like Chelsea, banned from signing new players for two transfer windows.
The case being cited to give Chelsea hope was in 2005, when the CAS reduced a Fifa sanction against Roma, who were found guilty of inducing the centre-half Philippe Mexès to breach his contract with Auxerre. Still, the CAS upheld the ban on Roma signing players, reducing the period from two transfer windows to one.
There are several other cases in which the CAS has upheld Fifa rulings over players breaking their contracts, and FC Sion, of Switzerland, are currently appealing to the CAS against a two-transfer-window ban imposed in May.
Fifa has publicly welcomed the CAS when it has backed the sanctions, saying the regulations are dedicated to "defending contractual stability in football".
So Chelsea are on a stickier wicket, and Fifa surer of its ground, than some might have thought when the news first broke and the ban on signing players seemed, on these shores, unheard of.
If Chelsea are to appeal, they may have to argue that they did not do what Fifa found they did – we have been given scant details so far – or that somehow Kakuta's contract with Lens was not valid. It might safely be assumed that the DRC members are not complete fools and will have considered the issues fully, knowing that Chelsea were certain to appeal to the CAS. If the facts are upheld, the appeal will be on the severity of the punishment, and there the Al Kuwait case could stand as a precedent. Where a club has been found guilty of inducing a player to breach a contract, the CAS has upheld a two-transfer-window ban.
The case is not what it seemed at first, that Fifa had finally been able to get tough on rich clubs who poach young talent being nurtured by smaller clubs around Europe and elsewhere in the world. Nor does it have anything to do with that other stain on football's treatment of young people, the trafficking of fledgling talent across continents, by men who hope to make pots of money somewhere along the chain.
This one is more straightforward: Chelsea wanted Kakuta. No great scouting insight was necessary because he was an outstanding young player at European youth level, known to all the clubs. Chelsea signed him at 16, presumably paying him very well to join the multinational hopefuls in Roman Abramovich's academy. Chelsea's only problem, Fifa have found, is that Kakuta already had a contract, and breaking that is not allowed.
Those in English football inclined to a knee-jerk criticism of Fifa, or Sepp Blatter, for supposedly having it in for English football should perhaps think instead about applauding the world governing body for taking a stand.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/dav...09/sep/04/chelsea-fifa-contracts-transfer-ban
