Football has always been about money, but now it’s about leverage. The latest spectacle is players flatly refusing to play while still under contract: Alexander Isak at Newcastle, Hamza Igamane at Rangers. Both cases highlight the same crisis. Which is when star names decide that the contracts they signed no longer apply, the clubs and supporters are left to pick up the pieces.
Take Isak. Newcastle have poured wages, resources, and tactical planning into him, only for the Swede to signal, in effect, that his signature on a contract is conditional. He is not a slave, but nor is he a free agent: he signed the deal, took the money, and gave the commitment. The same story repeats at Rangers. Hamza Igamane, just 22 and already attracting suitors in France, refused to come on as a substitute against St Mirren, citing a quad injury he hadn’t previously mentioned. Days earlier, Rangers had rejected a bid from Lille. Then he missed training before a Champions League play-off, with club staff noting “no obvious signs of injury.” It doesn’t take a genius to join the dots: this is a player engineering his own exit, reducing his employer’s position to rubble in the middle of a vital campaign.
This is the absurdity: a contract supposedly binds both sides, but in modern football it often binds only the club. The player can down tools, sit on wages, or claim a mystery injury, forcing the hand of management. The club, by contrast, is expected to honour every payment, keep the player on the books, and (when the charade becomes too damaging) accept a cut-price transfer.
Not Just the Players
Of course, it would be a mistake to imagine this is only about greedy footballers throwing tantrums. The so-called elite clubs have perfected the art of unsettling players under contract. A few flattering calls to an agent, a story leaked to the press about “interest,” and suddenly a young striker is sulking on the bench with a phantom injury. The agent plays his part too, whispering in the player’s ear about wages, buyout clauses, and Champions League football elsewhere. It’s a system built to corrode loyalty from the inside out.
The hypocrisy is obvious: the same clubs that preach about “honouring contracts” when their stars are tapped up think nothing of destabilising a smaller side’s best player when the opportunity arises. Rangers lose Igamane to Lille, Newcastle risk losing Isak to the giants circling overhead. It’s the same story, repeated endlessly.
The truth is simple. If all clubs abided by a binding code of conduct, and if contracts were treated as genuine commitments rather than bargaining chips, the power games would end overnight. A player under contract would remain unless formally sold. Instead, the ecosystem thrives on manipulation: players, agents, and elite clubs colluding to turn contracts into props in a never-ending auction.
Contracts That Actually Mean Something
Should there be a framework where a contracted player cannot simply refuse to play? In principle, yes. Without such a framework, the game is little more than a marketplace where the richest buyer always wins, and clubs are left powerless. But enforcement is the hard part. What can a club realistically do if a player fakes injury or simply refuses to run? Fine them? Bench them? Suspend them? All options harm the team more than the individual. Worse still, any attempt at hard enforcement risks legal challenge under employment law: “restraint of trade” has always been the counterweight against absolute contractual lock-ins.
If football is to escape this endless farce, it needs more than hand-wringing. It needs structure. A universal framework could rebalance the relationship between player and club, not by shackling footballers in pseudo-serfdom, but by making the contract a real, enforceable instrument instead of a suggestion.
Start with mandatory exit architecture. Every top-flight contract should include either a fixed buyout clause or a transparent release band tied to transfer windows. That removes the backroom brinkmanship and stops the “refuse to play until they sell me” routine. Fans might not like seeing the price-tag laid bare, but clarity beats chaos.
Add a mediation clock: if a player claims injury or refuses to play, an independent body has ten days to investigate. If the claim is legitimate, the club adapts; if not, the refusal triggers sanctions. This avoids the endless limbo where managers say one thing, agents another, and supporters are left none the wiser.
Next, eligibility sanctions: verified non-medical refusal to play should mean automatic ineligibility for two to four weeks, coupled with partial wage escrow. The money doesn’t vanish—it sits in limbo until obligations are resumed or a transfer is agreed. That prevents the surreal scenario of a player collecting full wages while undermining the team.
Finally, enforce a transparency rule. Clubs should publish exit clauses and transfer bands. That way, Lille (or any other suitor) knows what it will cost to prise Igamane away, and Newcastle won’t be blindsided by last-minute ultimatums over Isak.
None of this is revolutionary. It’s the bare minimum for treating contracts as contracts. Without it, the present charade will continue: players holding clubs hostage, clubs scrambling to cut losses.
So we are left with a hollow question: when is a contract not a contract? When it is signed by a footballer with enough value to treat it as optional. The club becomes hostage; the fans, collateral damage; the spectacle, a farce.
Football needs to choose. Either contracts are real. Binding both ways, with clear, enforceable sanctions for breach. Or we stop pretending and admit that what we have is not a contract at all, but a rolling letter of intent. Until then, the likes of Isak and Igamane will continue to prove the point: in the modern game, loyalty lasts only until the next bid arrives.
