It’s becoming increasingly common where a footballer will have legitimate business interests outside of football, so this could become more common where clubs look to protect themselves.
We’ve never had any clear examples of business interests starting to impact a player’s career with their club, but that changed recently with Gerard Pique and Barcelona. Football-Espana quoted ESPN when they reported that external interests meant Gerard Pique could’ve missed a match with Leganes in November.
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In the end he did play but Barca struggled and had to comeback to win the game, so it appears that the club are desperate to avoid any further examples of this:
? Noticia @ABC_Deportes
? El Barça impone cláusulas “anti Piqué” en los nuevos contratos
? Los jugadores no podrán compatibilizar su vida como futbolista con otra actividad profesional
? Prohíben también la utilización de las redes sociales en las concentraciones pic.twitter.com/fsjVjNcFFe
— El Partidazo de COPE (@partidazocope) January 10, 2020
The report suggests that the club will start to impose a new “anti Pique” clause in contracts for new players. That clause will prevent them from having business interests that could impact on their playing career while also limiting social media use in certain situations with the team.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if this starts to become common in contracts when a player moves club from now on, but it’s also surprising that such a clause didn’t exist in the first place.