‘Tapping up’ players

[FeedTheArf]

The free Nathan Tella thing got me thinking about whether it could be seen as tapping him up which is a phrase that used to be around about 10 years ago and I think (?) some clubs even got charged for doing it.

Almost every player we’ve signed has spoken about how Kompany talked to them before they signed. I’m fairly sure it was Amdouni who said he’d talked to Kompany 2 months before signing at which point we definitely wouldn’t have had a bid accepted.

So my question is, is it still a thing we should be concerned about coming back to bite us? Not from a moral “we shouldn’t be talking about players contracted to other clubs”, but more from a FA / Premier League charges point of view.

Obviously would be hard to prove with lots of agents involved.

[Grimsdale]

Tapping up players is pretty much a thing of the past as most interaction goes via players' agents now. I expect there's nothing wrong with someone contacting the player's agent to gauge interest and the player themselves contacting the interested party.

As for the Tella thing, you would think that tapping up a player involves some sort of interaction with them rather than merely posting something on TikTok. It's a bit like if Kompany said "I would love Kylian Mbappe to sign for us", would that be counted as contacting a player from another club?

[dsr]

I'm sure tapping up still goes on, but since (1) every club does it so there is little incentive for anyone to make it stop, and (2) unless they're really stupid it's done via agents and by phone or face to face so it can't be proved, it ain't going to stop.

[CoolClaret]

It wouldn’t be seen as an actual attempt to tap up, no.

As others have mentioned, there’s tons of back and forth between clubs and agents and relationships are also built with clubs and agents that can lead to a certain club knowing of the availability etc of a player that they may or may not be interested in.

The point with the Tella video is that if you take a step back and look at it objectively, no actual ‘good’ comes from it.

The only possible outcomes are all negative which is why it’s being rightfully scorned

[Spiral]

It's rubbish content, honestly, and Pace's daughter being the one to post the video, not to mention Pace himself also sharing it, makes it difficult to sell anyone on the idea that there wasn't an element of us talking about another club's player to some advantageous end of ours. "I don't want to talk about another club's player", that's generally the line managers usually go to when a journalist asks about specific ongoing transfers, and they're tight lipped on the matter for good reason. Imagine if something like it had been posted and shared by the chairman relating to Coulibaly at Dortmund. We'd have ended up looking like absolute weapons.

[Juan Tanamera]

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that club A will have given permission for club B to talk to a player.

[claptrappers_union]

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that club A will have given permission for club B to talk to a player.

That is what should happen. A former pro footballer told me it's not the case a lot of the time.

[FeedTheArf]

Weirdly this video just came up on my feed. Ben Foster discussing how players are sounded out

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJbfYTPt/

[TheFamilyCat]

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that club A will have given permission for club B to talk to a player.

Like managers, I think that by the time permission is given, personal terns have already been agreed.

[Vegas Claret]

well considering a week or two ago Bayern happily made it public that Tuchel had been to Harry Kane's house for a meeting and nobody particularly batted an eye lid I think we are on safe ground

[Firthy]

I'll go out on a limb here and guess that club A will have given permission for club B to talk to a player.

But did club B give club A permission to post an obviously biased video that would persuade player in question to demand a transfer to club A?

[evensteadiereddie]

You can imagine the old chant for both of these teams
"Give us an A."
"A."
"Er..."

"Give us a B."
"B"
"Er.."

[Walton]

Tapping up Tella?

He played for us for a full season