Buying Players, Destoying Hope

Since the 2006 FIFA World Cup, I have become an avid fan of soccer. It's fun to play, watch, and talk about even. The one player who has become my favorite is Fernando Torres from Spain. They call him "El Nino" because he's young and a very strong leader to a very good Spanish team. i started following him as he played for Spain and Athletico in the Madrid Premiere League in Europe. During the summer, Torres signed a 6-year deal with Liverpool. (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=443360&cc=5901) He was still signed to a contract with Atletico, which put them in a perdicament of taking a lot of money but losing their best young player. This got me to thinking, why is it that no other sport but soccer lets teams talk to a player that is still contractiually obligated to a team? If all other sport did this then the Yankees would have Brandon Webb, Ryan Howard, Vladamir Guerrero among other players by just buying them away from teams because no matter how you feel the owner might look at it, it's still a business and they would more than likely take that huge lot of money. I find this to be utterly rediculous. I like the way the just about every other professional sport handles players; wait until the player is not under contract before teams can talk to them. This leaves the playing field a little more fair. That way teams such as the Yankees and Red Sox can't just say, "Well Jake Peavy is having a really good season. Let's buy him away from the Padres." Take David Beckham for example. He was still under contract with Real Madrid before the LA Galaxy offered $250 million dollars to him. (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2786923) Real Madrid was put in just as much of a perdicament with this move as Atletico was with the Torres move. How does this affect people as a whole? Well it may not, but it does make you look at whether or not players are truely loyal to a team. At that, if teams are even really loyal to their players. As a fan of soccer, I find it hard to believe this is any good for the sport. I like knwoing my favorite player will stay on the same team (same country at that) for their entire contract. I feel this could hurt the sport of soccer not only here in America, where it isn't even a 2nd tier sport anymore, and around the world.