Dangling juicy carrot tempts spirit-dodgers

NO arguing. What their manager is doing and how they’re doing it is fantastic. If there’s a loophole, they’ve found it and some of those players are as good as any I’ve seen in the world.

“But I can’t believe there’s such a massive loophole. It seems pretty ludicrous to me and we need to get it sorted.”

Another attack on Wolverhampton Wanderers? After the midweek broadside from Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani, you could certainly be forgiven for thinking so.

But no. Those words were spoken by Ian Holloway in 2013 and the subject of his wrath was an altogether different set of golden boys. Watford.

Then, as now, the Hornets were owned by a foreign investor, Giampaolo Pozzo, who exploited a unique resource unavailable to rival clubs in order to sign players who would otherwise be out of Watford’s league.

Restricted

To Holloway – and he was far from the only person irked – this gave them an unfair competitive advantage. Sound familiar?

Admittedly, the mechanics were different. Pozzo owned two other clubs – Granada in Spain and Udinese in Italy – both playing in the top flight. Players from Granada and Udinese were then loaned, free of charge to Watford. Matej Vydra, a Czech international who ultimately won Championship Player of the Year, is a prime example.

Under normal circumstances, regulations would have restricted Watford to borrowing just two players from any one club. But, because overseas loans were bizarrely classed as full transfers, there was no limit on how many members of his bulging stable Pozzo could shuttle to Vicarage Road.

In Wolves’ case, it is owner Fosun’s relationship with Portuguese super agent Jorge Mendes that provides the pulling power. Almost 50 per cent of Wolves’ signings over the past 18 months are Mendes clients.

Among them is £15.7m record signing Ruben Neves, a player who inexplicably abandoned Champions League football at Porto while also ignoring interest from Chelsea to ply his trade at a second-tier club in the West Midlands.

If not quite calling the shots, all but the ignorant and the stupid can see that Mendes has a meaty paw in Wolves’ transfer policy – a seemingly blatant breach of FA rules banning third-party involvement.

These state that: “No club may enter into an agreement which enables any party, other than the club itself, to influence materially the club’s policies or the performance of its teams or players in matches and/or competitions.”

Wolves, whose position is further muddied by the fact

that a Fosun subsidiary owns shares in Mendes’ agency, sidestep this somewhat ambiguous definition of ‘influence’ by saying Mendes is merely an adviser. Despite pressure from several Championship clubs, this argument is accepted by the EFL.

Benefitd

“We should play in a fair competition,” tweeted Radrizzani. “Not legal and fair to let one team owned by a fund whom has shares in the biggest players' agency with evident benefits (top European clubs giving players with options to buy... why the other 23 teams can’t have the same treatment?) Ultimately, the EFL closed the loophole that permitted Watford to loan so many players, forcing them to sign permanent deals. In time, rules on third party involvement may also be reworked. For now, though, Radrizzani and Co must ask themselves one question. If we were Wolves, would we do the same thing? And anyone who doesn’t say ‘Yes’ should take a polygraph. In sport, it is natural to recoil at the ugly face of unfairness. That is why the advantage gained by Watford and Wolves instinctively feels wrong, despite both clubs operating within regulations. But football, sadly, no longer operates as a sport. It is a multi-billion pound industry, with all the ruthlessness and sharp practice that entails. Where only the strongest, most cut-throat survive. Where rules exist to be tested, not obeyed. As Dave Hockaday, the erstwhile Watford coach, said when asked about Pozzo’s methods: “You get through the wall, under the wall, over the wall, around the wall – however you can. You can’t blame them for exploiting the rules.” From a business perspective, Watford didn’t cheat. They innovated. They did what was needed to gazump the competition. Wolves have followed suit, and they won’t be the last. Yes, we’d all love a level playing field. In an ideal world, every division in Europe would have salary caps, draft picks and curbs on spending. If FIFA want to implement that, great. If not, it is unrealistic to dangle a £170m carrot at Championship clubs and expect them to respect the ‘spirit’ of the law. Call it unfair. Call it wrong. Call it what you like. But the brutal fact is that football is reaping what it has sewn.