Very often something you see during the day looks like becoming a good blog piece and this is one of those times. Late on Wednesday, early on Thursday morning, I became aware of a new contract that was being readied for a non-league player in the National League and below.
Quite a few players and others took to social media to voice their displeasure at what was on show to the footballing world and the PFA soon followed with their own words to say they are not backing this in any shape or form, but what does it all mean?
The changes to the contract involve player injuries. As we well know football at times operates in a completely different way to the rest of the world, for example if banks and the like investigated all 92 Premier League and Football League clubs they would find a fair few insolvent, in business terms like the corner shop or the shoe shop, they would be would up and out of business.
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Currently players received full salary when injured and of course unable to do the job they’re paid for, where as the likes of you and I rarely will receive anything other than Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if we’re sick or injured and unable to work, football differing here but as far as I am aware it’s never been any different.
The FA have instructed that the new contract will only pay players their full wage for 12 weeks and then SSP until they are fit or up to 28 weeks for those in the National League top division. For those below that level down to Step 6 it’s only for six weeks, clubs themselves can however pay the full wage if they wish.
While in terms of what you and I would receive it make it level in life, but is there relevance in what job I do compared to that of a non-league footballer? Is the risk the same? For some maybe, but not everyone. It’s quite a change they’re wanting to happen.
The next part is the one that I think has caused more uproar and outrage and I’m with them on that. Within this new agreement a player’s contract can be terminated if a club determined medic believes they will be out for longer than  with three months’ notice, note not an independent opinion but that of the employing club.
Again, some will argue that it’s not uncommon to see this happen in working life outside of football, but this is a completely different industry. Would we expect footballers to actually ‘bottle’ a tackle for fear of getting a bad injury and ending up released from their club. Would we find players becoming less inclined to engage in physical contact as much as possible to avoid injury? Would we find players refusing to train if they think the training pitch is dangerous or the weather is causing a bigger risk to injury? It’s a dangerous route we could be going down here.
And would we see cases going to court of players suing one another for loss of earnings? Think of the amount of camera angles these days and clubs recording for themselves, those in the crowd, endless mess this could become.
Quite a few have mentioned players becoming self-employed and obtaining insurance in the way a carpenter or plumber would who owns their business, given the nature of football, would insurance premiums be out of reach of those lower down the pyramid and not feasible for them to play?
Then we get to the self-employed part if it happened, then there are no contracts almost invoices instead, zero hours almost and no notice period? Would that lead to players being at one club on a Monday and 24 hours later signing for someone else with better conditions or offering to pay better for their services however limited that might be.
It fully appears to me that none of this has been thought through nor consulted with the PFA. Although they don’t represent National League players they are clear in their words, it’s not surprising for the FA to go and do something that isn’t real world thinking.
It’s really stirred a hornets nest without needing to, consult, revise and speak to the parties involved, it’s the out of touch FA we know and expect. What makes you shake your head even more is reading some of the comments on these player’s tweets where people believe every footballer earns £20,000 a week.
That’s how the game is viewed thanks to the Premier League, for us within the non-league game that figure is roughly one third of a salary for the year for an average National League full time player, don’t comment if you don’t know, quite simple really. Go and have a view of Charlie Austin (@chazaustin10) and Tyronne Marsh (@Ty_marsh) on Twitter, there are others too and decide what you think, let me know in the comments.
