Football Contracts

What is a contract?

It is important to first understand what a contract is and how it is constructed before looking at it in a football context.

A contract is a binding agreement between two or more persons that is enforceable by law. The word contract is adapted from the Latin pharse, pacta sunt servanda, meaning literally, promises must be kept. (McKendrick, p17)

Contract: 'an agreement between two or more parties having the capacity to make

It, in the form demanded by law, to perform, on one side or both, acts which are

Not trifling, indeterminate, impossible or illegal' (MacQueen, p3).

A contract requires only an agreement. For it to be a contract, the agreement must be one under which action, or performance, is to take place (McKendrick,p20)As has been said, a contract requires two or more parties, but the obligation of performance under it may exist for only one of them or both.

In a contract, the parties involved voluntarily bind themselves and agree to perform what they have agreed. As soon as the contract is formed, they are obliged to perform what they have agreed to do, as soon as an agreement has been reached the law obliges the parties to perform in accordance with the terms of the contract' (p 13).

The above is a general outline of what is involved in a contract and what it means for those who are bound to it.

In today's football culture, contracts are always at the fore point of debate in terms of how they can restrict movement and the demands they put on a football player. The aim of this report is to look at how players are protected by including contract clauses such as a buy out clause or wage increase after x amount of appearances and so on, as well as the transfer system and the players rights with regards to their transfer before looking at trade union protection and the factors involved in the club vs. country debate.

Contract clauses

More often than not a contract has limitations in it; Think of your life insurance policy....it doesn't cover you if you are committing a crime, in a war, act of god, etc. These specific limitations can also spill over to the athletic contracts. Michael Jordan had a famous.' love of the game' clause in his contract. It stipulated he could play basketball anytime, anywhere he wanted to...most don't have the luxury of that clause. http://experts.about.com

Contract clauses are involved in almost every contract a professional football player signs and each clause varies depending on the situation of the club and player. For example, former Scotland star Simon Donnelly earned a new contract from Partick Thistle just by turning out against Ross County yesterday. The 32-year-old, capped 10 times as a Celtic player, has been an ever-present for the Jags and made his 20th appearance of the season at Victoria Park yesterday. That has triggered a clause in his contract which guarantees him a year's extension, keeping him at Firhill until 2008. http://scotlandonsunday.co.uk This is a perfect example of a clause being activated between both club and player. The reason this clause was agreed was because while Simon Donnelly was at his previous club Dunfermline, he had a number of injury problems, once he left, Patrick jumped at the chance to sign him on a one year deal with the possibility of a year's extension.