Barcelona FC: an embarrassment to humanity and football

There is no point in having rules if they are not enforced, this is a chunk of FIFA's 2009 edition of the rules and regulations concerning the transfer of players:

"A club intending to conclude a contract with a professional must inform the
player’s current club in writing before entering into negotiations with him. A
professional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if his
contract with his present club has expired or is due to expire within six months.
Any breach of this provision shall be subject to appropriate sanctions."

It is strange that FIFA are so keen to punish Chelsea by enforcing the rules concerning the protection of minors that is set out in the very same set of FIFA rules and regulations. The behaviour of Barca and other Spanish clubs in attempting to unsettle our captain Cesc Fabregas has been quite appalling and arguably outside the rules set out by FIFA. Here are the Barca President Joan Laporta's, a girl's name incidentally, latest words:

"Cesc Fabregas is desired by us for many reasons. Barcelona have decided to fight for the kid for next season. The money? This will be decided at the end of March to prepare the way for a deal.
Cesc is such a big player. Our intention is to convince the Londoners about the sale. It won't be easy but we have good relations with the Gunners."

Good relations with the Gunners, I wonder where Joan gets this from, judging by Peter Hill-Wood's latest comments I think Joan he is losing touch with reality:

"I am really p****d off with Barcelona and all that nonsense.....It is not the first time they have done this and it is a most disrespectful and tiresome thing to do. You would think there would be some action you could take against them, but I suppose you cannot stop the man shooting his mouth off."

Laparta has been caught punching below the belt time and time again. Arseblogger had it nailed on with his exclusive on Laporta's personality and family history. The baseless speculation continues in the Spanish media and I am sure most of us can put up with a bit of rumour or gossip. However what we should not have to put up with is a football club's President repeatedly openly stating a desire to sign one of our players who is tied to a long term contract.

The FIFA rules and regulations are inadequate in my eyes. If a club cannot speak to a player of another club who is under a long term contract with that club before it has been mutually agreed between the two clubs; then it clearly should not be within the rules to openly state one's desire to sign the players of another club. Obviously this would lead to grey areas, fine everything does, for example if a manager simply talked of his admiration for a particular player then this would be perfectly acceptable. What I find completely unacceptable is the behaviour of Barcelona and Joan Laporta, they should be punished for their complete lack of manners and flagrant disrespect for the rights of other clubs and players.

FIFA are a pathetic bunch of corrupt crooks in my opinion. Real Madrid spent years illegally tapping up Ronaldo and FIFA did precisely nothing about it. The Premier League had the balls to nail Chelsea for illegally tapping up Ashley Cole, but even though the Premier League has much more bite than FIFA, they have their problems as the tapping up must be reported by the club that was sinned against, meaning that the sinners can escape punishment by paying the sinned against off, as in the Frank Arnesen tapping up scandal when he was poached by Chelsea. The Hleb tapping up affair was another case of the clubs being able to escape without punishment due to the weak rules that are never enforced. There have been numerous other recent cases in which no punishment was dished out for blatant offences, Berbatov to Manu, RVN to Manu and on and on.

Unless the governing bodies FIFA and UEFA get their acts together then the big unethical bullies like Barca and Real will continue to ride roughshod over what is good and proper. If the rules don't allow for punishing clubs for the blatant tapping up of under contract players, then the rules need changing. It's already a world for the big boys with the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, if this carries on then it is only football that will suffer in the long run as the competition dries up. One thing I will never forget is Barca's behaviour throughout this whole Cesc affair, for the rest of my life I will ensure that no money of mine ever makes it anyway near that damn football club.