WEEKLY WHINE

Interaction: Transfers

Myers: Hello. Welcome to this week's edition of Interaction, the thought provoking show that mainly provokes the thought "When is this show over?". I'm Debbie Myers. Our topic today is transfer fees in football. Are they too high? Are they too low? Do they need to be moved up, or down? Or perhaps sideways? Or maybe they just need to be taken outside for walkies. Without any more ado, let me introduce our panel. Mr Clive Maulings is a former Welsh footballer who is now associate producer of football telecasts for Silly Sports. He joins us tonight from Dublin.

Maulings: Good evening.

Myers: Ms Jeanette Pretui joins us from Washington, DC. She is a former French footballer who is now a women's football reporter for L'Oeuf magazine.

Pretui: Hello.

Myers: Mr Charles Tswyrzcha is in Madrid. He never played football, but he's a staunch supporter of Real Madrid's international players.

Tswyrzcha: Hello there.

Myers: And joining me in our Warwickshire studios, Ms Liz Allan. She is a former Canadian footballer who now operates a professional escort agency and courier service.

Allan: Happy to be here. [sneezes]

Myers: Salud. Welcome, all of you. I'd like to go to you first, Clive, and ask for your thoughts on transfer fees.

Maulings: They're too high. Dundee United paid Crystal Palace nearly a million pounds for Fan Zhiyi of China. You could buy yourself a beautiful house for that. Now, Fan Zhiyi is a good footballer, but he's not a house.

Myers: Harsh words there. Jeanette?

Pretui: I don't understand the transfer system. Here in the United States, there's something called free agency. When a professional athlete's contract expires, the player may make a deal with any team. The teams don't pay one another for the rights to players; the players are traded instead. This is better for morale, since you have players moving in exchange for one another rather than for money. In Europe, players look at the previous week's transfer and go, "Dude. I'm so much better than that guy." Whereas with free agency, players can only compare themselves with the players for whom they were traded.

Myers: Some worthwhile notions there. How about you, Charles? Have these exorbitant transfers affected your support for the game?

Tswyrzcha: No. At least my tax money isn't being thrown around for footballers.

Myers: That's another interesting thought. Liz?

Allan: It's amusing. [sneezes]

Myers: Salud. A moment ago, Clive mentioned Fan Zhiyi, the Chinese defender who played a key role in getting his national side into their first Men's World Cup. Earlier this week it was announced that he was transferred to Dundee in the Scottish Premier League from Crystal Palace in England's First Division. As you said, Clive, the value of that deal was about one million pounds. What does this deal mean to you, Charles?

Tswyrzcha: I don't care. Dundee aren't going to be playing Real Madrid any time soon.

Myers: Liz?

Allan: The key issue here was national team duty. Asia had the second round of World Cup qualifying going on a weekly basis since AUG 2001, so they needed Fan every week. He couldn't come back and play for Crystal Palace whenever the arbitrary bosses wanted him to. They should have taken that into account when they... [sneezes]

Myers: Salud. How about you, Jeanette?

Pretui: I agree with Liz on this one. Here in the United States, there's something called national pride. I mean, China had stormed through the first round, and they were drawn into a weak second round group. They had to take advantage of that, and the only way to do so was to have their star players like Fan available for every match, no matter what. Crystal Palace actually believed that promotion into the Premiership, which could easily be reversed anyway the following year, is a more worthwhile goal than trying to get the world's most populous nation into the Men's World Cup for the first time. China achieved their goal and made a billion people happy. How many people are Crystal Palace going to make happy if they go back into the Premiership? Who the hell cares?

Myers: Well, on that note we'll go to the questions. You can contact us with virtually any form of telecommunications, using the various code numbers, addresses, and frequencies that are now appearing on your screen. We'll leave them up a bit longer, and they'll go away..... now. Here's our first question, and it's by fax. It's from Della Irving in Irvine, CA, USA. She wants to know how much money the Montréal Expos would have made over the past decade if all their departing players had been by transfers. Jeanette?

Pretui: That's an important question. Here in the United States, there's something called mathematics. If you look at Pedro Martínez, Mark Grudzielanek, and all the players who came from the Expos, there are a lot. Let's say they're worth an average of US$5,000,000 in transfers. That's probably an underestimate, in fact. The number of players that the Expos have traded or lost by free agency over the last ten years is large. Very large, in fact. I don't even know what it is. When somebody figures out what that number is, we just multiply it by US$5,000,000. That tells us how much the Expos would have made.

Maulings: 834.

Pretui: For a total of US$4,170,000,000.

Myers: Where the hell do you get that?

Pretui: Well, as I said, you just multiply 834 by US$5,000,000 to -

Myers: Not you, Jeanette. I'm asking Clive where the figure 834 comes from.

Maulings: From me. I just said it.

Myers: Yes, but where did you get it?

Maulings: I didn't get it anywhere. I generated it myself.

Myers: Have you looked it up?

Maulings: No, I generated it myself. I used no artificial means of any kind.

Myers: You made it up?

Maulings: Of course not! I constructed it using a time honoured technique.

Myers: You made it up.

Maulings: I constructed it using the juxtaposition of digits.

Myers: You made it up.

Maulings: This technique is completely valid.

Myers: Charles, what do you have to add about the Expos?

Tswyrzcha: I don't care. The Expos aren't going to be playing Real Madrid any time soon.

Myers: I figured you'd say that. Jeanette, Della raises an interesting point. Suppose there was, say, an English football club whose sole purpose was to develop talent for other clubs. The players would be transferred away as they become experts, and this developmental club would earn its money from transfers rather than ticket sales or merchandising. Would that be effective?

Pretui: I think it would. Here in the United States, there's something called an electron. Its charge is known to a very high degree of experimental accuracy. Thus, developing players would be a good way for a club to make money, as long as it's very good at it.

Myers: [puzzled] Liz, can you shed any light at all on whatever Jeanette just said?

Allan: You think I understood that? [sneezes]

Myers: Salud. [moving her chair away] Well, I think that's going to do it for Interaction this week. Let me thank Mr Clive Maulings, Ms Jeanette Pretui, Mr Charles Tswyrzcha, and Ms Liz Allan for attempting to appear on the programme tonight. We'll be talking about high resolution satellite imagery next week, when our guests will be a representative from Orbimage, a representative from the Tunisian government, a street sweeper from Liverpool, and his daughter. Good night.

Allan: [sneezes]

Myers: Haven't you ever heard of cold medication?