Transfer crisis The transferred list: Mary Hannigan on the effect British soccer's financial crisis has had on Irish players in the Premiership and English League
Six years ago Bournemouth went into receivership and were left with no option but to cash in on one of their few valuable possessions, captain Matt Holland. They believed he was worth £2 million but when Ipswich Town offered just £700,000, rising to £800,000 with appearances, they were in no real position to haggle.
"We had to accept the offer, but I genuinely thought he was a £2 million player," said Mel Machin, Bournemouth manager at the time. "The only consolation for us is that we have a sell-on clause," he said last summer, not long before Aston Villa agreed a £4 million fee with Ipswich for the midfielder. If the transfer had gone through Bournemouth would have collected approximately £1 million from the deal, a veritable Lotto win for the hard-up second division club.
Holland, though, turned down the move, a decision that came as something of a relief to Bournemouth chairman Peter Phillips, who believed the player, fresh from appearing in the World Cup finals last summer, was worth a lot more.
Twelve months on? Admittedly, Holland's star has waned, not helped by Ipswich being relegated from the Premiership, but the paltry £750,000 fee Charlton paid for him three weeks ago still came as something of a jolt, to both Ipswich and Bournemouth.
"My understanding is that we'll eventually receive £12,500 if Charlton stay in the Premiership after two years and another £12,500 if they stay in the Premiership for a third season," said a dejected Phillips.
"I don't know the exact circumstances but it's very disappointing that a player of Matt Holland's calibre has gone for what we feel is an extraordinary bargain, especially as we were also disappointed with the £4 million fee just a few months ago."
Ipswich, then, have collected just £50,000 more than they paid for Holland (the fee could rise to £900,000 if Charlton remain in the Premiership), but, like Bournemouth in 1997, they felt they had no alternative but to accept the offer.
Chairman David Sheepshanks admitted the club, in chronic financial trouble since their relegation, could no longer afford Holland's £20,000-a-week wages (with three years still to run on his contract) and simply had to remove him from the wage bill, however small the fee.
The transfer, though, is being proffered as further evidence of Premiership clubs taking advantage of their already impoverished Nationwide League cousins and their desperate need to cut costs. "Circling vultures" has been the kindest tribute paid this summer.
If the collapse of ITV Digital a year ago wasn't calamitous enough, the clubs were hit again by the introduction of transfer windows that only allow them sell in two periods through the year.
The figures are startling. There has been an 89 per cent drop in transfer revenue between Nationwide League clubs, and a 36 per cent drop between the Premiership and Nationwide League, while 586 players - a sixth of the entire workforce in the four divisions - were released by their clubs this summer, 122 of them Premiership players, many of the rest from the eight Nationwide clubs that have had to scrap their reserve teams. In just two seasons the number of professional footballers in divisions one to three has dropped by 25 per cent.
So, then, to be parochial about it, what effect has the crisis had on Irish players in Britain? As a scan through the list of released players will confirm, not good. Some, of course, were released simply because their clubs didn't think they'd make the grade, but, in better times, others would probably have been given more time to prove themselves.
Clive Delaney left UCD in the Eircom League, and his job as a trainee accountant, to spend the last five months of the season with West Ham. He felt he had done well in his reserve outings, as did manager Glenn Roeder. West Ham began discussions with Delaney about a contract but once they were relegated, that was that - he was released, along with Gary Breen.
"At the last minute the budget was pulled and Clive was one of 10 players to be released, despite all the positive things Glenn Roeder had to say about him," says Eamon McLoughlin, the former Eircom League player who now acts as an agent for several Irish footballers, including Delaney.
"They simply couldn't afford to keep him because of the state of their finances, made worse by relegation. In better days Clive would have stayed on."
Delaney, though, has attracted plenty of interest since he was released - Queens Park Rangers are the latest club the defender has been linked with - and should get himself a deal before the new season, but others won't be so lucky.
"The situation is pretty bleak," says McLoughlin. "The clubs simply don't have money to spend - they're waking up now and a bit of reality is kicking in. They overspent the last few years and now they're having to get their houses in order. It was bound to come around, it was getting out of hand the way wages were rising. They have to stop and take stock now to make sure they don't go to the wall."
"A lot of the clubs, even in the first division, are looking to have squads of 20 players for next season, when it was 27, 28 last season. Multiply that by the number of Nationwide clubs and you're looking at an awful lot of unemployed footballers.
"Even the lads who have been retained have been offered 50 per cent less, or worse than that. The most dramatic example I saw was Andy Legg, the Welsh international, at Cardiff City.
"He was offered a new contract at 70 per cent less than he earned last season - and Cardiff won promotion."
The optimistic assumption is that there will be plenty of late transfer activity this summer, with Damien Duff at the forefront, in the weeks leading up to the closure of the transfer window (August 31st). As it is, clubs are reluctant to sign players in June or July when they can leave it late and save on wages.
Mick McCarthy, who must drastically reduce the size of Sunderland's squad before he can bring in any new players, shares this view. "People are testing the water," he said last week. "We're dancing around the handbags before the real chat-up line is delivered."
McLoughlin, though, isn't so sure. "I don't think there'll be a big splurge in August because most clubs simply don't have any money to spend. If anything there'll be a lot of loan moves, and most of them will be by Premiership clubs who will continue to pay the players' wages because the clubs they'll go to can't afford them.
"The players know it has slowed down and they're no longer in the position they were three years ago. For the Irish lads there's a lot to be said for coming home and playing in the Eircom League, where some of the clubs have gone full-time. It's about quality of life too - would you prefer to stay at home or go over and struggle away in the lower leagues? That's down to the player himself, but, of course, some of the lads will say 'I want to get to England, full stop'.
"For me a real sign of the times is what's happening Colin Healy. I'm sure Colin will get sorted with a club - he's an excellent player, and he's a very good lad - but it's frustrating for him that the summer has dragged on and he still hasn't signed with a new club, it is worrying. He should be fine, though, but there are plenty of others who won't be."
If the transfer window system isn't popular with struggling clubs it's even less so with out-of-work footballers. After all, if they don't find new employers by August 31st they will have to wait until the second window opens, midway through the season. Hence the urgency in the string of trials being undertaken around the clubs by Graham Ward, the Irish under-20 captain released by Wolves, Stephen Capper, released by Sunderland, and Neale Fenn, released by Peterborough, to name but three. Capper, an Irish under-21 international, was one of 80 redundancies - at every level, from players to canteen staff to the director of football operations - at Sunderland, despite impressing the coaching staff with his progress at the club.
He has just had an unsuccessful trial at Chesterfield and must continue to look for a new club.
It's a situation with which senior internationals Phil Babb, also released by Sunderland, and Gary Breen are familiar. And even if they find new clubs they are highly unlikely to match the wages they have earned in recent seasons.
So far this summer only two current or past Republic of Ireland internationals - Steve Finnan (Fulham to Liverpool, £3.5 million) and Holland - have cost their new clubs fees. Graham Barrett moved from Arsenal to Coventry, Dominic Foley from Watford to Sporting Braga and Dave Savage from Oxford to Bristol Rovers on free transfers. The party, by the looks of it, is over.
Steve Finnan Fulham to Liverpool £3.5 million
Matt Holland Ipswich to Charlton £750,000
Graham Barrett Arsenal to Coventry Free
Michael Doyle Celtic to Coventry Free
Dominic Foley Watford to Sporting Braga Free
Dave Savage Oxford to Bristol Rovers Free
Cliff Byrne Sunderland to Scunthorpe Free
Joe Kendrick Newcastle to 1860 Munich Free
Paul McCarthy Wycombe to Oxford Utd Free
Cliff Byrne Sunderland to Scunthorpe Utd Free
John McGrath Aston Villa to Doncaster Free
Martin Rowlands Brentford to QPR Free
Danny Murphy QPR to Swindon Free
