Tapping Up

[lillywhites61]

So according to recent itk we are seriously concidering take action against Real and PSG for their recent activities.

Are we just as bad at times, so is it a little hypercritical or is it in our case normally the media who drive the stories?

I certainly don't remember having so many players, ex players and members of the hierarchy behaving as they have at Madrid in the last few months.

I'm not really sure what you can do about other than tell them to do one and hope your player/manager wants to stay loyal?!

I must admit for me now I just skip any story now with Bale or AVB in it, if the worst happens it happens, what can we do as fans.

 

[sloth]

There's a food chain. Of course players are tapped up, we do it, they do it, everyone does it. The question is what harm does it really do? If a player wants a move he'll act to try and make it happen within the limits of his character and the strength of his desire to move. In the case of Bale he'll either want to stay or go, he knows who his suitors are so Zidane or whoever letting him know his options make little difference. In the case of PSG, if AVB has a release clause then again making their interest known in the press makes little or no difference. Either AVB will want to move or he won't, either PSG will pay the release clause or they won't.

All of which leads to the conclusion that this stuff in the press is less about tapping up and more about the relationship between the press and clubs and the desire for clubs to do journo's favours at low cost to themselves with presumably the promise of quid pro quo type stories in the future.

 

[nightgoat]

You won't get Ledley coming out demanding one of our targets hand in a transfer request.

 

[mark87]

You won't get Ledley coming out demanding one of our targets hand in a transfer request.

That's because he has class, ZZ on the other hand.....

 

[Jamturk]

For me the interesting thing is as a ITK pointed out is, if there was really any substance why all the public blustering?
These messages aren't for GB or AvB, they are for the fans of the respective clubs involved.
An empty barrel makes the most noise.

 

[fridgemagnet]

You could argue hypocrisy, espescially when H was here you can put a case forward that its the media regurgitating the same interview everyday, you can't excuse it because it's Real and Barca's MO in getting high ticket players on the cheap/er.

I've never known two clubs as bad for it as those two, they are as subtle as a house brick and blasé with it. United were pretty damned shameless re: Berba but this is something else espescially two seasons running.

The worse I remember us as a club for tapping up was Bostock, H was being H I don't think the club were telling him to name names, that's the difference IMHO

 

[CowInAComa]

Nothing is going to happen. Its just posturing.
UEFA/FIFA arent going to crack down on these sort of clubs doing these sort of things. Champions League is built on it.

 

[mill]

You could argue hypocrisy, espescially when H was here you can put a case forward that its the media regurgitating the same interview everyday, you can't excuse it because it's Real and Barca's MO in getting high ticket players on the cheap/er.

I've never known two clubs as bad for it as those two, they are as subtle as a house brick and blasé with it. United were pretty damned shameless re: Berba but this is something else espescially two seasons running.

The worse I remember us as a club for tapping up was Bostock, H was being H I don't think the club were telling him to name names, that's the difference IMHO

Bostock was free to sign a contract with whomever he wanted so there was no tapping up there

 

[beats1]

Problem is, Zidane is a puppet for Madrid, im not sure anybody knows what he does because it seems he is a a DoF but it seems clear that he is doing a poor job. Major problem is that he only talks about bale and knows fuck all about the people madrid are trying to sign. It seems he is hired just to talk about Bale.

 

[Wardy]

I was thinking that clubs should be fined for speaking about transfers of other clubs, but they're all too rich to notice the affect of that, so instead why not have some sort of transfer embargo applied?

Difficult to think of a solution that would be effective, but something needs to be done, because it clearly works and unsettles players. Look at the fabregas situation - barcelona were a complete joke

 

[nightgoat]

You could argue hypocrisy, espescially when H was here you can put a case forward that its the media regurgitating the same interview everyday, you can't excuse it because it's Real and Barca's MO in getting high ticket players on the cheap/er.

I've never known two clubs as bad for it as those two, they are as subtle as a house brick and blasé with it. United were pretty damned shameless re: Berba but this is something else espescially two seasons running.

The worse I remember us as a club for tapping up was Bostock, H was being H I don't think the club were telling him to name names, that's the difference IMHO

We signed Bostock when Ramos was manager.

 

[Jamturk]

Don't worry about it, its all soap opera. Do we honestly think that if we wanted to sell Bale, if Bale wanted to leave that the media would have any influence in these decisions?
Its quite obvious that Bale is coveted and that he would know this without all the media spin.
Football is a business that creates employment in the game and out of it.

My opinion is that the board knew we were going to sell Berbatov that summer but have to sell it to us as if they really didn't want it, had no choice etc. That Berbatov was disruptive, poisioning the dressing room blah blah blah. I say bullshit, football is very political and cynical and as in most walks of life money orientated.

If Bale is happy about staying another season (Which I think he is, just had a child, would the missus really want to move away from her friends and family at this time? very grounded) and the board is happy that he will at the worst maintain his value he will be here come September.

 

[$hoguN]

Tapping up does do some harm, contrary to what has been written here. As a club we have a right to reject all offers for our playing staff unless they have a specific buy-out clause. We don't even have to inform the players agent about the magnitude of bid, or that there has been one. If we take Bale for an example, Madrid may have submitted bids for him and been told to "f**k off". By announcing in the press they are willing to pay whatever they just need him to hand in a transfer request they are trying to circumvent the usual route for buying players and force us to sell him by trying to get Bale to intervene in a situation that they have no right to. Tapping up happens, we all have to accept that. No-one is naive enough to believe that we as a club do not find out what a player may want in terms of wages, etc. to move. However there is a far cry of difference to dropping the player's name once in a interview and contact his agent about his clients demands to what Madrid are doing, which is publicly asking him to hand in a transfer request.​

 

[Real_madyidd]

An empty barrel makes the most noise.

Does it? If you shake an empty barrel you hear fuck all, if you shake one with some liquid in then it makes noise.

Perhaps the saying should be "a vigarously shaken barrel with a small amount of liquid in makes the most noise".

Well, that's my contribution to this thread sorted.

You're welcome everyone.

 

[Jamturk]

Does it? If you shake an empty barrel you hear fuck all, if you shake one with some liquid in then it makes noise.

Perhaps the saying should be "a vigarously shaken barrel with a small amount of liquid in makes the most noise".

Well, that's my contribution to this thread sorted.

You're welcome everyone.

You are assuming I was talking about shaking the barrel. However if you throw a barrel down into a cellar I think you will find the empty barrel would in fact make the most noise.

 

[talkshowhost86]

There's a food chain. Of course players are tapped up, we do it, they do it, everyone does it. The question is what harm does it really do? If a player wants a move he'll act to try and make it happen within the limits of his character and the strength of his desire to move. In the case of Bale he'll either want to stay or go, he knows who his suitors are so Zidane or whoever letting him know his options make little difference. In the case of PSG, if AVB has a release clause then again making their interest known in the press makes little or no difference. Either AVB will want to move or he won't, either PSG will pay the release clause or they won't.

All of which leads to the conclusion that this stuff in the press is less about tapping up and more about the relationship between the press and clubs and the desire for clubs to do journo's favours at low cost to themselves with presumably the promise of quid pro quo type stories in the future.

I suppose the issue is that if a player has a club whispering in his ear about how great it would be to play in (for example) Madrid, then that might actually encourage them to agitate for a move whereas they wouldn't necessarily have done that before. You get a situation, as with Modric, where a club practically forces a player to make a transfer request.

Obviously it happens all the time and in modern day football it's very hard to stop, but when a club is as brazen as Real have been recently it is a little bit hard to swallow.

 

[sloth]

I suppose the issue is that if a player has a club whispering in his ear about how great it would be to play in (for example) Madrid, then that might actually encourage them to agitate for a move whereas they wouldn't necessarily have done that before. You get a situation, as with Modric, where a club practically forces a player to make a transfer request.

Obviously it happens all the time and in modern day football it's very hard to stop, but when a club is as brazen as Real have been recently it is a little bit hard to swallow.

The thing with that is that it can all happen behind closed doors and so it's impossible to police. I'm not sure that when it comes out publicly we're seeing tapping up, but something else...? I wouldn't have thought that the club doing the tapping up is served by everyone knowing that's what they're doing.

 

[talkshowhost86]

The thing with that is that it can all happen behind closed doors and so it's impossible to police. I'm not sure that when it comes out publicly we're seeing tapping up, but something else...? I wouldn't have thought that the club doing the tapping up is served by everyone knowing that's what they're doing.

I think you're right...the stuff in the press is something else. Tapping up is, or certainly was, when a club speaks directly to the player/the player's agent without the owning club's permission. Getting Zidane or ratface to say in the media that they want Bale to join isn't tapping up...it's just marketing effectively.

But what concerns me is that if there is that much public flirting with Bale, what's going on behind the scenes? As you say it's so hard to police now, but I do think that it does some harm.

 

[the watson]

We signed Bostock when Ramos was manager.

Heh, speaking of tapping up.

 

[King of Otters]

Hope we don't go public with this again, it was embarrassing enough last time. I don't think a club that once employed Harry Redknapp can really complain about tapping up.