How to Be a Footballer by Peter Crouch

Author:Peter Crouch [Crouch, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2018-09-05T21:00:00+00:00

TRANSFERS

This book is called How to Be a Footballer for a reason. I’ve tried to take you inside this crazy world of ridiculous houses, cars and bizarre tattoos, a world where nothing may make sense to the non-footballing person.

But there is one part of our world so weird, so cloak and dagger, that even those of us at the centre of it all aren’t really sure what’s happening. The only thing you can say with any certainty about transfers is that there will always be someone, somewhere, who is having the wool pulled over their eyes. It might be the selling club. It might be the buying club. It could be the manager. It’s often the player, and it’s the agent more often than you might think. Frequently it’s the fans.

Who gets what? Where does all the money go? It’s like watching a match with a telescope. You can see some bits perfectly, but never the whole thing at the same time, and by the time you’ve worked out what’s going on in one part, the scene where your eye fell earlier may have completely changed again.

Who makes them happen? Same answer. Sometimes the club you’re at. Sometimes the club that fancies you. Sometimes an agent, who may never tell the player involved that it was his work all along. When a salesman works on commission it can be the commission that makes him work. If they’re pushing you to one particular club, can you be sure that you’re hearing about all the offers on the table, or only the one offering them the juiciest slice? Is that the right club for you or him? Should you actually be moving at all, when you’re perfectly happy where you are, in a side that works for your specific skill-set, with a manager who understands what you do?

My first transfer was from Spurs to QPR for £60,000. I still have no idea how that figure was arrived at. I certainly had no control over it. I think the sale happened because Tottenham’s director of football David Pleat didn’t fancy me. I was a teenager, I’d never played for the first team. QPR manager Gerry Francis told me things were better sorted without agents, which he would, so I went down and signed the first contract they put in front of me. My dad read through it once. ‘Go on, just sign it.’ I would be on slightly more than I was at Spurs, but it was still only a couple of hundred pounds a week. I was the lowest paid player at the club by a long way. I wasn’t complaining, because I had achieved nothing in the game.

Eight months later I was put up for sale at £1.2m. An increase made sense. I’d scored goals for QPR in the Championship. But why £1.2m? Why not £1.1m, or £1.3m? I’m asking you like you might know the answer. I certainly don’t. You’re selling me? Right.

This time my agent was involved, although I was once again perfectly happy with the salaries being offered.

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