Compensation wanted for soccer players

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 12

Compensation wanted for soccer players

PA Auckland The New Zealand soccer boss, Charlie Dempsey, wants financial compensation for the flood of All Whites crossing the Tasman to play for Australian national league clubs. Mr Dempsey said yesterday one of his final objectives before standing down as the New Zealand Football Association chairman next month was to introduce a new policy for overseas transfers. “The way things are going, it’s only a matter of time before all of the All Whites end up playing in Australia,” he said. “But the thing that disturbs me is that the Australian clubs are getting our best players for a song and we’re not getting recompensed.” Mr Dempsey said he had already instructed the N.Z.F.A. councillor, Dave Lamont, who is a lawyer, to inspect the contracts of several All Whites recently signed with Australian clubs. But he wants to formulate a watertight policy to present at the N.Z.F.A.’s next council meeting which will require Australian clubs to pay compensation for the signing of

All White players. Kevin Hagan (St George), Andy Deeley (Heidelberg) and Clint Gosling (Olympic) are all well into their Australian careers, but they have been recently joined by fellow All Whites Fred de Jong (Marconi), Robert Ironside (Olympic), Chris Riley (Adelaide City) and Paul Halford (Brisbane Lions). In virtually every case it appears the Australian clubs signed the player on a free contract with neither the N.Z.F.A. nor their Kiwi clubs getting a cent out of the deal. “That’s not on as far as

I’m concerned,” Mr Dempsey said. “The N.Z.F.A. spends a considerable amount of money on developing players to All Whites level and Australia’s getting the benefit of it.

“In business, you’re recompensed for the loss of an asset and it should happen that way in football too.”

Meanwhile, the All Whites coach, Kevin Fallon, said New Zealand clubs only had themselves to blame for losing their top players and failing to gain compensation.