Last week it was announced that the federal prosecutor‘s office wants 57 suspects from the football world to answer to court. It could be a long time before punishments are handed down for what happened in the past. It seems obvious that things should be different from now on, but apparently it isn’t.
“I currently have the impression that people who have something on their tally more regret the fact that they have been caught, than that they have done something wrong,” says Stijn Francis in De Tribune. “That frustrates me. There is no sense of guilt.”
More and stricter regulations alone will not solve the problem, Francis believes. “Brokers are now faced with a huge administration and clubs are watching it much more closely, but our culture knows us and immoral practices to manipulate transfers or people, nothing has changed.”
Francis gives a recent example of one of his players who was contacted by a British brokerage firm. “They had a German club for my player, but according to them that German club did not want to work with Stijn Francis. I would not know where that came from.”
Francis thinks it right that Mogi Bayat is still active as a broker in Belgium, because Bayat has not yet been convicted of anything. The presumption of innocence must always be respected. “I do wonder that he had his most successful years just after Operation Zero.”
According to Francis, more radical changes are needed than tightening the rules of the game. “If the top in a system doesn’t change, the culture doesn’t change either.” The broker therefore finds it strange that certain people who are suspected of criminal offenses remain active within the Pro league. “If only for the perception, it would be better that someone comes to the head objectively.”
Not only the atmosphere around brokers has remained unchanged, according to Stijn Francis. The problems have also remained the same in sports journalism. “Clubs have created an environment where everything revolves around them so much that brokers and journalists who follow clubs on a daily basis have to keep up.”
“The so-called club watchers of newspapers often write what the club directors tell them to do and if they don’t, they don’t get any news or firsts. I understand that is a difficult balance for a journalist.”
“The balance is equally difficult for brokers. If brokers do too little what the clubs want, they give transfers to someone else next time.”
The broker does see a solution for the problem of rogue brokers, but it is so radical that it is probably unfeasible.
“No Belgian club will agree with me, but I have been saying for years that the solution is to abolish the transfer market.”
“It is in the transfer market that the enormous amounts are earned and it is the enormous amounts that attract the wrong people. Someone like Mogi Bayat also says honestly that he mainly works for clubs. But calling the end of the transfer market is a bit naive, that I know.”
