African clubs must stop selling themselves short

If the maxim everything is politics is true – like the air we breathe, the water we drink and the sky we see or do not see – then football and the transfer market are political too.

The movement of young African footballers to Europe is not merely a harmless exchange between willing buyers and sellers. It is a system shaped by power, money and who gets to determine value.

The morally preferable arrangement is obvious. A talented player should pursue the highest level of his profession. His club should be properly compensated. His family should benefit. His development system should benefit. His agent should earn a legitimate fee. The buying club should receive the player it values. Nobody needs to lose. That is what a fair football economy would look like.

But too often, the African club is expected to develop the player, absorb the costs, carry the risks and then surrender him at a price determined by Europe and its agents.

The argument is familiar. Europe has alternatives. Japan is cheaper. Australia is cheaper. Players should leave, prove themselves abroad and only then become expensive.

Agent Matthew Moore represents Sundowns’ Kutlwano Letlhaku. His old man is Rob Moore, also an agent. Matthew advances the argument above. He says South African clubs are asking too much and risk pricing themselves out of the market.

Strip away the polite language of market realism and the politics become clear. The buyer’s risk is protected. The African producer carries the burden.

And it sits neatly inside a much older historical pattern. Slavery was the most brutal expression of a system in which human beings were converted into economic units. People were removed from their families, communities and histories, transported elsewhere and made profitable in economies they did not control.

Football is not modern slavery. Professional players are not slaves. The connection also lies in the politics of extraction.

It lies in the recurring historical idea that African value is produced in one place, removed from that place and monetised somewhere else. It lies in the assumption that value becomes real only when it is recognised by the destination. It lies in the belief that movement itself is proof of progress, regardless of who loses bargaining power.

The language has changed.

Then it was civilisation, Christianity, work, improvement and a supposedly better existence. Today the vocabulary is cleaner: opportunity, exposure, development, Europe and the dream.

And the most powerful phrase of all is: “Do not stand in the boy’s way.”

An African child dreaming of Europe does not create an obligation on an African club to surrender its economic rights. Dreams are not transfer clauses. Ambition is not a waiver of value.

A desire to play for Barcelona, Manchester City or Bayern Munich does not erase the investment made by the club that developed the player. And has an enforceable contract with him.

Yet, African clubs are judged differently from European clubs.

Liverpool protects an asset, and it is called business. Real Madrid protects an asset, and it is called strategy.

An African club protects an asset, and suddenly the language changes. The player is trapped. His dream is blocked. His club must release him.

#FreeSibanibane. Garbage!

If protecting contractual value amounts to imprisonment, then European football is full of prisons. The moral language appears only when the club holding the asset is African.

The player’s dream becomes useful when it weakens the bargaining position of the African club. And some people benefit from that weakness. Agents earn commissions when transfers happen. Intermediaries earn money when players move.

Then comes the role of football commentary. Much of it is banter journalism, not analysis. It is built around club loyalties, transfer gossip and the pleasure of mocking rivals.

Those loyalties are then carried into serious economic debates. A club demanding proper value is ridiculed. A foreign buyer offering less is romanticised. The agent receives the microphone. The African institution receives the accusation.

African clubs are expected to pay development costs, accept discounted valuations and surrender negotiating power, then smile because a player has received a European opportunity.

No.

African football clubs must be prepared to say no.

No to cheap valuations. No to emotional pressure disguised as concern for a player’s dream. No to agents lecturing African institutions about what European buyers find convenient.