If you cast your mind back, only a few years, several player’s spring to mind, who spent their whole careers at one club. Manchester United is a great example, where the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville remained throughout their whole careers, despite interest from clubs throughout Europe.
Steven Gerrard remained at Liverpool, having come close to a move to Chelsea and Matt Le Tissier, who was never going to challenge for the league title with Southampton, remained loyal to the club throughout his career.
It’s not just English football where this used to happen regularly. In Italy, the likes of Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi stayed at AC Milan for their entire playing careers and Alessandro Del Piero remained at Juventus while he was at his best and even stayed with them when they were relegated.
The same can be said for Gianluigi Buffon, who stayed in Turin, despite having to play football outside the top flight and Francesco Totti, has had a very long career but has never left his beloved Roma, since making his debut in 1992. Between the 1970’s and 1990’s many players were loyal to the club at which they started their professional career and would not have dreamed of playing for anyone else.
With player’s seemingly happy to move between clubs more often than ever before, has any sense of loyalty in football been lost?
Many people look at the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Carlos Tevez as being mercenaries, players who have no loyalty towards any team and are happy to move on when it suits them. Yes, both players have played for several clubs throughout their career but having started in Sweden and Argentina respectively, were they going to remain where their career began, playing in those leagues? No, so any sense of loyalty they did have, quickly disappeared when they made the move from their first club, to play in a better league.
What about Robin van Persie? Who recently returned to Old Trafford with Fenerbahce and was given a huge reception, after saying in an interview how he was looking forward to returning home. The Dutch striker spent 8 years at Arsenal but was happy to jump ship and join Manchester United, in search of personal glory. Having won the Premier League title with United, he considers them to be ‘his’ club, which is seen as being hugely disrespectful to Arsenal.
Kenny Miller, the Scottish striker, has played for both Celtic and Rangers, kissing the badge of the Celtic shirt and returning to play for Rangers just over a year later. Was kissing the badge just an empty gesture, that meant nothing to Miller?
Clearly money has a big role to play here and can players be blamed for moving to a club where the money will be greater? If anyone was working a job on £20,000 per year and a different company offered the same job, for £40,000 per year, you would be considered a fool not to take it, so why should football be any different? Robin van Persie wanted to win the Premier League and felt his best chance to do that, was with Manchester United. What’s the problem with that? And let’s not forget, how quickly some fans can turn on their own team or manager, when things are not going well. Is that a sign of loyalty?
Football has changed greatly since the 70’s and even the 90’s. Football clubs are looking for success in the quickest possible time and players are looking to earn as much as they can and win as many trophies as possible, during their short careers. Should either party be blamed for that?