In
professional
A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and skil ...
team sport
A team sport includes any sport where individuals are organized into opposing sports team, teams which compete to win or cooperate to entertain their audience. Team members act together towards a shared objective. This can be done in a numb ...
s, tapping up (
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
) or tampering (
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
) is an attempt to persuade a player contracted to one team to transfer to another team, without the knowledge or permission of the player's current team. This kind of approach is often made through the player's
agent
Agent may refer to:
Espionage, investigation, and law
*, spies or intelligence officers
* Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another
** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...
. It is expressly forbidden in many professional
league
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
s in their
collective bargaining agreement
A collective agreement, collective labour agreement (CLA) or collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is a written contract negotiated through collective bargaining for employees by one or more trade unions with the management of a company (or with an ...
s, but is not illegal.
In English football
A milder form of "tapping up" involves a
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
's letting his admiration for a player at another club become known, perhaps by hinting at his interest while working as a
pundit
A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport).
Origins
The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...
during the broadcast of a game in which the player is taking part or by lavishing praise in programme notes when the two teams meet. Most ex-players candidly admit that tapping up has gone on in football for decades.
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest Football Club is an association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Nottingham Forest was founded in 1865 and have been playing their home games at the City Ground, on the banks of the River Tren ...
manager
Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough ( ; 21 March 1935 – 20 September 2004) was an English football player and manager, primarily known for his successes as a manager with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. He is one of four managers to have won the Englis ...
later said, "we tapped more players than the
Severn-Trent water board!"
Notorious examples of tapping up in the
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
include
Dwight Yorke
Dwight Eversley Yorke CM (born 3 November 1971) is a Trinidadian and Tobagonian former professional footballer and current manager of Australian A-League club Macarthur FC. Throughout his club career, he played for Aston Villa, Manchester Unit ...
,
Jermain Defoe
Jermain Colin Defoe (born 7 October 1982) is an English former professional footballer who played as a striker. He also played for the England national team.
Defoe began his career with Charlton Athletic, joining their youth team aged 14, be ...
and
Ashley Cole
Ashley Cole (born 20 December 1980) is an English football coach and former player who is currently a first-team coach at Premier League club Everton. As a player, he played as a left-back, most notably for Arsenal and Chelsea. Cole is consi ...
. In these cases, the incidents soured the relationship between the player and his original club. Cole was found guilty and fined £100,000 by the Premier League on 2 June 2005 for a meeting in a hotel in January 2005 between himself, the Chelsea manager
José Mourinho
José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix GOIH (; born 26 January 1963), is a Portuguese professional football manager and former player who is the current head coach of Italian Serie A club Roma. Once dubbed "The Special One" by the British ...
, Chelsea chief executive,
Peter Kenyon
Peter Kenyon (born 1954 in Stalybridge, Cheshire) is a British businessman who has served as the chief executive of English Premier League football clubs Manchester United and Chelsea, where he has been involved in contentious transfer dealing ...
, and his agent
Jonathan Barnett.
Chelsea were again at the centre of a controversy in 2009, when the club was found guilty of inducing
Gaël Kakuta
Gaël Romeo Kakuta Mambenga (born 21 June 1991) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Amiens and the DR Congo national team.
A youth product of Lens, Kakuta moved to Chelsea in 2007 in a controversial transfer. Rarely ...
to break his contract with French team
RC Lens
Racing Club de Lens (, commonly referred to as RC Lens or simply Lens) is a French professional football club based in the northern city of Lens in the Pas-de-Calais department. Its nickname, ''les sang et or'' (''the blood and gold''), come ...
in 2007. As punishment, they were banned by
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
from registering new players for two
transfer window
A transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can transfer players from other playing staff into their playing staff. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer win ...
s. Chelsea appealed to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its co ...
, who subsequently lifted the sanctions on the club and the player after ruling that Kakuta did not have a valid contract with Lens, and therefore could not have breached it. Chelsea's transfer ban was suspended later in the same year, and was lifted in February 2010.
Harry Redknapp
Henry James Redknapp (born 2 March 1947) is an English former football manager and player. He has previously managed AFC Bournemouth, West Ham United, Portsmouth, Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, Queens Park Rangers and Birmingham City. In his ...
, manager of
Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional association football, football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English footba ...
at that time, has said that activity which verges upon 'tapping-up' regularly occurs in deals between Premier League clubs, and
Scott Minto
Scott Christopher Minto (born 6 August 1971) is an English former professional footballer and sports television pundit.
As a player he was as a left back who played in the Premier League for Chelsea and West Ham United and in Portugal for Ben ...
, a pundit for
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...
, said that the ban was "extremely harsh" because of the frequency of it. However, there have been other cases where clubs have received transfer window bans for tapping-up; notably,
Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Roma, Queensland, a town
** Roma Airport
** Roma Courthouse
** Electoral district of Roma, defunct
** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council
*Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
over
Philippe Mexès
Philippe Mexès (; born 30 March 1982) is a French former professional Association football, footballer who played as a centre back. He represented AJ Auxerre, Auxerre, A.S. Roma, Roma and A.C. Milan, AC Milan at club level during a career that ...
, and
FC Sion
Football Club de Sion, commonly known as simply FC Sion or Sion, is a Swiss football team from the city of Sion. The club was founded in 1909, and play their home matches at the Stade Tourbillon. They have won the Swiss Super League twice, and ...
over
Essam El-Hadary
Essam Kamal Tawfiq El Hadary ( ar, عصام كمال توفيق الحضري; born 15 January 1973) is an Egyptian Coach (sport)#Association football, goalkeeping coach and former professional Association football, footballer.
Nicknamed the "Hig ...
.
The practice of tapping up is portrayed in the 1953 British film ''
The Great Game
The Great Game is the name for a set of political, diplomatic and military confrontations that occurred through most of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century – involving the rivalry of the British Empire and the Russian Empi ...
''.
References
{{reflist
External links
The truth about 'tapping up'Angry Wenger accuses Inter of tapping up midfielder HlebBates makes Chelsea tap-up claim
Association football terminology
Sports business