What should clubs do about perennially injured players?

JSArsenal

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I'm talking about the likes of Diaby, Wilshere, Hargreaves and other permacrocks who can't string five games in a row together. Specifically at the end of their contract. I don't want to be that guy crying about the poor millionaire footballers and a football club is a business first and foremost. However, how long should a club keep an injury prone player? For the length of their contract? Are they obligated to offer them a coaching role in the youth academy?

Is it the FA's job rather than the clubs?
 

SalfordRed18

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I'm talking about the likes of Diaby, Wilshere, Hargreaves and other permacrocks who can't string five games in a row together. Specifically at the end of their contract. I don't want to be that guy crying about the poor millionaire footballers and a football club is a business first and foremost. However, how long should a club keep an injury prone player? For the length of their contract? Are they obligated to offer them a coaching role in the youth academy?

Is it the FA's job rather than the clubs?
Well it would be looked at case by case, as a whole variety of factors would influence that decision.

By in large the player has a contract with the club so, it's down to the club to decide whether to keep them on books, run down contract and release or just move them on to another club for a nominal fee.
 

wolvored

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Its the clubs job obviously. They sign them to the contracts. What clubs board is any stupider than Uniteds? Jones on a 5 year contract, absolute joke.
 

Ecstatic

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I'm talking about the likes of Diaby, Wilshere, Hargreaves and other permacrocks who can't string five games in a row together. Specifically at the end of their contract. I don't want to be that guy crying about the poor millionaire footballers and a football club is a business first and foremost. However, how long should a club keep an injury prone player? For the length of their contract? Are they obligated to offer them a coaching role in the youth academy?

Is it the FA's job rather than the clubs?
The only obligation for a club is to respect the terms and conditions of a signed contract in a law-abiding state.
 

Red Stone

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Put them down like you would with a horse with a broken leg, obviously.
 

Cast5

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You sign them to a contract and you honour that contract, if you think they’re not going to stay fit you don’t renew their contract, it’s our fault we gave Jones a 5 year deal knowing that he’s more likely to accidentally jump in the bath with a toaster than kick a ball for us.
 

harms

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Surely inability to keep yourself fit isn’t one of requirements for a coaching job?

I also don’t like the “spoiled millionaires” argument, but one of the reasons that footballers get such wages is that it’s a high risk — high reward job that can be taken away from you by one tackle.

I don’t think that the club has any obligations towards a player aside from the signed contract. If a player shows himself valuable in a different role — why not? But there’s certainly no obligation.
 

NicolaSacco

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Put them down like you would with a horse with a broken leg, obviously.
Ha! I’m sniggering a bit too much (lack of sleep) at the idea of Phil Jones getting injured during a game and the match stewards just nonchalantly erecting a small tent around him!
 

LoneStar

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If you are extending the contract for an injury prone player, tie the majority of their salary with minutes played or matches played. Simple as.

If another club offers the player no such clauses, thats fair and the player now has another option.
 

No Love

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We send them off for recovery, just like Boxer in Animal Farm.
 

48 hours

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I’m sure there’s insurance available for professional footballs to guard against career ending injuries etc.

the clubs only obligation should be to see the existing contract out
 

SilentWitness

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Appearance based contracts. I love Rodriguez and he’s a quality player (don’t believe this nonsense you read about him only being good in the first few games) but he’s only available for 1 in 3 and that’s not good enough for a star player. It is also what worries me about the rumours concerning people like Coutinho. No doubting that he’s a class player but I’d rather we were targeting younger talents than older ‘superstars’. That’s for another thread though.
 

WeePat

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It really depends on how the club feels about their duty of care towards the player or more cynically whether they can extract some transfer value out of extending a contract + sending the player on loan. Chelsea have kept extending Marco van Ginkel's contract while he has bounced from 8 month injury lay-off to the next for the most of the last decade.

There should be no obligation beyond the length of contract, that's a given, but I like the idea of extending a player contract if it runs out while he's recovering from a serious injury.
 

RUCK4444

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Imo some of the responsibility should rest on the player.

It’s your body after all, if you can’t do your job then you don’t expect to be paid for the length of your employment.

I mean look at Jones and Bailly. It gets to a point where I think they don’t really want to play and are happy with the paycheck which makes me sick. Any little knock and they put themselves out of contention, compare that to Maguire and even Lindelöf who plays with constant back issues. Do we think Maguire never gets knocks or strains? Of course he does, he just gets the feck on with it because he’s desperate to be a stalwart in the team.

Jones at this point should do the honourable thing and retire to stop stealing a living off the club imo.
 

tomaldinho1

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Exactly what’s done now. Shorter contracts and pay as you play contracts don’t need to be improved upon - from the outside looking in the PL seems really good for this kind of thing.
 

Iker Quesadillas

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There should probably be provisions for canceling or reducing the wages in a contract after a substantial period of injury.
 

Traub

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Players should purchase disability insurance - the rest of us have to do this in case something bad happens to us.
 

SER19

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Probably when renegotiating contracts aim for pay as you play, but beyond that, clubs trade in people and like anything some won't work out. If you have a squad of 24 and 22 of them are fit and ready you're still way up in terms of reward vs risk

Fans could probably do with changing attitudes and stop demonising players. Anybody who has suffered recurrent injury knows how painful and frustrating it is. Does anybody believe Phil Jones is just delighted phoning it in? He's probably suffering a huge amount seeing his very short career pass him by and all the things he dreamed of and wanted just not happening because his body fails him. Its tragic really
 

DWelbz19

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Players should purchase disability insurance - the rest of us have to do this in case something bad happens to us.
The rest of us aren’t on finite contracts with a very short amount of our adult life in our profession, though. I don’t know if this is actually a thing in the UK, either? Never heard of it myself.
——
What should clubs do if they have a contracted player who is injury prone? Nothing, but pay their wage? They aren’t obligated to do anything other than that. When renegotiating comes around, it’s then a value judgment as to whether or not to retain them.

Also just remember: player contracts are not public information. For all we know, somebody like Phil Jones is on a very low base salary with many clauses that tie into fitness or appearances.
 

Traub

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The rest of us aren’t on finite contracts, though. I don’t know if this is actually a thing in the UK, either? Never heard of it myself.
——
What should clubs do if they have a contracted player who is injury prone? Nothing, but pay their wage? They aren’t obligated to do anything other than that. When renegotiating comes around, it’s then a value judgment as to whether or not to retain them.

Also just remember: player contracts are not public information. For all we know, somebody like Phil Jones is on a very low base salary with many clauses that tie into fitness or appearances.
I think we may have a business idea here... RedCafe.net Insurance. Every player pays 1% of their salary - we can buy United with the profits.
 

DWelbz19

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I think we may have a business idea here... RedCafe.net Insurance. Every player pays 1% of their salary - we can buy United with the profits.
Might have to boost it to 5% if we want to buy Haaland this summer
 

Dave Smith

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Ha! I’m sniggering a bit too much (lack of sleep) at the idea of Phil Jones getting injured during a game and the match stewards just nonchalantly erecting a small tent around him!
Just imagine the meme worthy facial expressions we would get if this were to happen :lol:
 

Oranges038

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Put them down like you would with a horse with a broken leg, obviously.
Could send them out to stud either and create an elite breeding programme. Improve the physical side by mating them with physically superior footballers or athletes. Sign up the future rights that any offspring might have from a career in football or other elite sports. I'm thinking Phil Jones crossed with Lucy Bronze or Wendie Renard or Jack Wheelchair crossed with Marta or Sam Kerr.




Or just release them when the contract is up or pay them off to leave. If they aren't physically capable of fulfilling their side of the deal then they need to go.
 

duffer

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OleBoiii

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Break their legs. That will get them back on their feet soon enough.
 

Piratesoup

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Old invalid footballers should be allowed to spend their final years at a farm with lots of unrefereed pitches on which they can frolic wild and free
 

SlimDizzle075

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I'm talking about the likes of Diaby, Wilshere, Hargreaves and other permacrocks who can't string five games in a row together. Specifically at the end of their contract. I don't want to be that guy crying about the poor millionaire footballers and a football club is a business first and foremost. However, how long should a club keep an injury prone player? For the length of their contract? Are they obligated to offer them a coaching role in the youth academy?

Is it the FA's job rather than the clubs?
Sorry but there is nothing to be done and or should be done. signing any athlete to a contract is a gamble/risk for both parties. that's the nature of the competitive sports business.

the risk for the club is the players health and performances could drop, the solution is that these clubs are able to insure these contracts and file claims on that insurance policy if they are paying a player who can't play due to injury.

the risk to the player is the quality of the club, the club grounds, the investment the club makes in his team mates and coaches, etc. the solution is that the player can demand to leave and push for a move away.

if you gamble and win, great, if you gamble and lose.. well that's why they call it a gamble
 

NicolaSacco

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Sorry but there is nothing to be done and or should be done. signing any athlete to a contract is a gamble/risk for both parties. that's the nature of the competitive sports business.

the risk for the club is the players health and performances could drop, the solution is that these clubs are able to insure these contracts and file claims on that insurance policy if they are paying a player who can't play due to injury.

the risk to the player is the quality of the club, the club grounds, the investment the club makes in his team mates and coaches, etc. the solution is that the player can demand to leave and push for a move away.

if you gamble and win, great, if you gamble and lose.. well that's why they call it a gamble
Excatly. They are being paid to do a job in which the risk of injury is known to be thousands of times higher than your average man on the street. Clubs factor that in, which is why they have 25 man squads, it's just part of the game.

One of the absolute weirdest things about football is that a significant proportion of fans (of all teams) seem to develop an intense personal dislike of injured players. It's so illogical, it's almost taken personally.
 

hobbers

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Wouldnt be a problem if clubs didnt keep giving permacrocks ridiculous new contracts.

Oh wait, that's just us.

"Phil Jones will be like a new player for us next season" - Ole, 2021
 

duffer

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Is there any obligation on players to retire? What’s to stop someone with a career ending injury just seeing out their contract?
Nothing but most of the players who retire early just get their insurance pay-out (which is usually more than the value of their contract) and move on with their life.
 

Dr. Dwayne

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Hire psychologists and other support staff to help the players come to terms with playing through little knocks that you pick up playing. Injuries are difficult to deal with mentally and having a recurring one or accumulating lots of different little ones can cause a lot of mental hardship, resulting in players declaring themselves unfit over small issues because they fear another long term setback. Employers have a responsibility to provide for the physical and mental well being of their people and to have support in place to help them perform their best.

Luke Shaw could probably tell us a lot about this as I recall his comeback from the leg break was interrupted many times.
 
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If players get injured it's correct that clubs have to honour the contract they signed with the player. Essentially injured players are having what we'd call a 'work place injury' in any other job.

The crazy thing is to keep offering new contracts to players who have been injured way too much with no sign of recovery.