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What is Tapping Up?

Wednesday, 11. 18. 2009 – Category: Guide to Football Transfer Rumours

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As we’ve discussed, the current football transfer process requires the selling team to grant the buying team permission to talk with the player. Tapping up is what the British call the process of talking to a player before the buying club has given permission.

The most common process for tapping up a player is for a manager to express his respect and admiration for a player through the press.

Here’s Claudio Ranieri having a crack at it:

(Mohamed Sissoko) is a player that I like a lot and I know well. I had the pleasure of coaching him at Valencia
Thanks for that Claudio.

A slightly more nefarious take on tapping up involves the use of our good friends, the football agent. Agents will meet with the club and the player to act as a conduit of information between both parties.
The classic case of this was Ashley Cole, whose eventual move from Arsenal to Chelsea was shrouded in controversy. It was noteable not only for the press it received, but also for the brazen way that the meeting took place. Cole met Chelsea manager José Mourinho, Chelsea chief executive, Peter Kenyon, and his agent Jonathan Barnett in a hotel in London.

Regardless of the way it happens, and although it’s illegal, tapping up is ingrained into the nature of football. Preventative measures have been taken, and FIFA has attempted to crack down on it. For example, Chelsea were banned for making transfers for 2 windows, following the finding that Gaël Kakuta was illegally approached. However, being the spineless losers that they are, this ruling has been overturned on appeal. The punishment meted out was a fair and good one, how better to stop this practice than by preventing the clubs from conducting business, however it’s going to take someone with more cojones than Sepp Blatter to make a difference.