Kakuta plot thickens as the case for Chelsea's defence grows

Having had 24 hours to cool off, I’ve started to look more rationally at Kakuta-gate, and the FIFA transfer ban and fine that have followed. Increasingly it looks like a right old mess, and one from which FIFA themselves shouldn’t be able to extricate their greasy fingerprints. I’ll certainly admit here and now that the club has acted shamefully unethically, and that I’d really like to see it clean up its act. It does look however like Chelsea will be able to make a solid defence.

Roma were handed a two registration period ban for ‘poaching’ Mexes from Auxerre, and this has been cited by some as a fair precedent for FIFA’s punishment of Chelsea. But in reality the cases are very different, as the players had totally different forms of agreement with their previous clubs. It is in the nature of these ‘agreements’ that the rights and wrongs of Chelsea’s actions hinge.

Under French law, no player under 16 can sign a professional contract (this varies from country to country). As such, Kakuta did not have a professional contract with Lens, leading to a grey area in which Chelsea felt he was a free agent and Lens felt they had a valid form of pre-contract agreement. In contrast Mexes had signed a fully professional contract with Auxerre before he moved to Roma.

A quote from Francis Collado, a former Administrative Director at Lens who was involved with the Chelsea-Lens negotiations back in 2007 (I picked this up on the Times’ website), suggests to me that Lens are standing on a somewhat shaky legal footing. Collado is quoted to have said:

“He (Kakuta) wasn't free to go. At 14 we proposed a contract. In effect this was a pre-contract because in France you can't pay a player until he's 16. The contract was registered with the French FA and the French league. At a certain point last year I went to see Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen in London. I said to them: 'We cannot just let this player leave. We have a youth development centre to run. That costs money. We invest in it. This boy is a phenomenon. I took the contract to them. I gave them the figures and then they proposed a ridiculous figure. They said they thought they had the right to take him. I told them that I would go to FIFA, that they could be fined and banned from making transfers, but they thought they could get away with this. What has happened is a shame for Chelsea, but they were warned.”

This – along with other news slowly leaking out about the affair – suggests a number of things. Firstly that Chelsea firmly believe, and believed at the time, that they were free to take the player and that he was not under a legally binding contract with Lens as he was a minor. Furthermore, it is thought that Lens’ agreement with the player was actually a ‘training agreement’ – which probably isn’t worth much from a legal perspective. Secondly, Collado’s language itself suggests uncertainties. He flags that Kakuta had a contract registered with the French authorities – but how does that work in an international context? He also says Kakuta’s contract with Lens was a pre-contract ‘in effect’. ‘In effect’ doesn’t suggest faith that it was concrete.

In addition, Collado’s choice of words around having an expensive youth development centre to run and having made investment in a fine player smack of a desperate, emotion-driven bid to rescue some worth from a club product rather than a well-tuned legal argument for the illegality of Chelsea’s actions.

And there’s another twist in the tail. Collado refers in his quote to negotiations between the clubs that took place after Kakuta made his first appearance for Chelsea, during which Chelsea offered compensation that Lens considered ‘ridiculous’. That figure is said to have been around the £750k mark – it is perhaps ironic (and galling) that the fine opposed by FIFA yesterday is pretty much equal to that amount, suggesting that the governing body broadly agrees with Chelsea’s original valuation. It all suggests that Lens were over-reacting: tell-tale signs of a club understandably acting in desperation.

The job of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will be to distinguish the emotional, ethical arguments from the legal case and come up with a fair judgement based on the law. The differences in contractual law from country to country appear to be playing a key part in all of this, and it is FIFA’s responsibility to create a fair and transparent playing field upon which clubs across borders can do business with each other and players. As it is, they haven’t, and they therefore have a great deal of culpability for this mess. Their throwing the book at Chelsea stinks of hypocrisy, and shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

It’s also worth pointing out at this stage that Chelsea have made limited or no contribution to the ‘case’ thus far – FIFA processes don’t allow for it – so the official judgement could be a little skewed anyway. Furthermore, the FIFA committee looking at the case was supposedly made up of two French and no English officials. Hardly representative…but I’m not sure I’d expect any different.

Hopefully the CAS will throw out the ban, but uphold fair compensation due to Lens, who I have a great deal of empathy for. From my point of view, with the information currently out there (I stress I’m no expert!) it looks as if the club behaved terribly, but entirely within the law. If all this is proved to be true, this would seem fair punishment.

And here was me thinking the break for international fixtures would leave Chelsea blogs with nothing to talk about…

Comments

[Ph0BoLuS]

I wish Kakuta played for the first team at least. Seems stupid to go through all this over a reserve...Also didn't this happen with that young defender we got from Italy? Where Romes himself flew his chopper to the training ground?

[one winner]

The previous comment are obviously made by a cfc fan who does watch the reserves or youth team, Kakuta has an amazing talent, had he not broken his leg you suspect that he would have worn the blue of the first team already, in some form probably in a cup competion, he is also named in the champions league squad, albeit the fringe squad. Definetly a player we will all be talking about in the future, but for his football skills, not this insane rubbish from FIFA.

[Chelsea-Alan]

I believe Chelsea made an initial offer of £750,000 to Lens who rejected it saying that it was a 'rediculous' offer (for a 15 year old!) Also, I believe Lens were quoting £4m for the lad!
Chelsea's offer was not only realistic but also generous. How many young players of that age DO NOT make the grade by the time they are late teens.
As it was Gael Kakuta suffered a very bad injury last term. I bet Lens were sweating on him getting better! 'If' his career had been bought to an abrupt end I wonder if Lens would have offered any compensation back to Chelsea... of course not!
It is not Chelsea's fault that French law does not allow players under the age of 17 to sign a legal contract. Chelsea have done absolutely nothing that any other top European club would not have done and indeed have done in the past. FIFA should get ripped apart by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but somehow this awful organisation will continue to operate for its own nefarious agenda methinks.