With Skill and Labour

This weeks news about Morten's new contract got me thinking, why dofootballers and football clubs bother signing contracts?

It's very rare that either side honour the full length of the contract, and it's not just the player that breaks contracts, so often it's the club that feels it no longer has a use for the player and transfers him to another club.

It's usually the player throwing a strop that makes the headlines,when they make things awkward for their club because they want a moveaway.

Rovers have seen their fair share of players like this (Benni McCarthy anyone - ed?), but perhaps the most famous case is Nicolas Anelka, under contract atArsenal he fancied a move to Lazio, or Pierre van Hooijdonk at Nottingham Forest.

It's been a while since it happened, but I think that's only because clubs have become wise to the fact that players like that are great bargaining chip for the selling clubs to extract the maximum amount of cash from the club that's interested in buying their stroppy primadona.

* Wouldn't it be nice for a change if a player tried to force a move and the club simply said to them... 'tough, your under contract.' *

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