Italian Series A trying to negotiate player's strike

[lollapoe.livejournal.com]

ROME, Sep. 17, 2010 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Italy's soccer league chief Maurizio Beretta has urged the players' union to postpone the upcoming strike to allow more time to negotiate on Friday.

The players' union (AIC) announced last week they will strike on September 25 and 26 in protest against the Italian league, who have not renewed the collective bargaining agreement which expired in June.

"Considering the limited time we have to reach an understanding regarding the renewal of the collective players' agreement, and with the the date of the strike fast approaching, I think it would be sensible to postpone this strike to have more time," said Beretta on Friday.
The Italian federation, the FIGC, met with both the AIC and Lega Serie on Friday to discuss the strike, the collective agreement, and ways to avoid the action in less than two weeks.

Some progress has been made in an effort to stop the strike with a new meeting set for Tuesday, the players' union chief Sergio Campana said.
"We've made steps forward but no huge leaps. The talks continue and we'll meet again on Tuesday," Sergio Campana told reporters after the third meeting between league bosses and the union.
"I don't know," he replied when asked if the strike could be called off. "First we must listen to the players as the idea of industrial action came directly from them."



Idk if this has been posted yet? If it has, just tell me and I’ll delete it. Anyway, just a bit of background, there are several issues that were initially mentioned when talks about the strike first started, but by now only a few still seem to be relevant:

- the trend of clubs trying to force players to move teams in the last year of their contracts when they are no longer wanted, regardless of the player’s say;
- players not deemed good enough being forced to train away from the first-team squad.
- ... and then, of course, there is the issue of the collective contract that expired a while back, and still hasn’t been renewed.

Now, the collective contract is obviously a huge deal, since it protects the interests of “non-star” players – I know it’s often mentioned that players are overpaid, but that’s far from being a rule or the reality of the majority, it’s the life of a few. So yeah, when it comes to issues like that, I’m behind this. I also agree that unless there’s a major reason behind it, a player shouldn’t be made to train separately.

The issue about clubs pushing transfers, however, is pretty complex. No one seems to give a damn about contracts these days, and players obviously often don’t feel the need to fulfill their own contracts, so it’s a bit hypocritical to demand a certain conduct from the club when it’s not upheld by the athletes themselves.

There’s a few more articles about the situation here and here - what do you guys think about it?

Source: iStockAnalyst

Comments

[prettypuyol.livejournal.com]

If this strike B.S. doesn't let me see Zlatan play a bunch of games this year I am going to shit!

[genbu-no-miko24.livejournal.com]

if it doesn't let AC Milan play period...I will be you joining you.

[kem-viva.livejournal.com]

i hope they can get things figured out so they dont strike, but I am on the players side in this.

[the-ladyj.livejournal.com]

I agree with the OP, that the issue of upholding contracts seems a bit hypocritical at times. But as I said, "at times" this is far from true for all the players. I guess we can agree on that both sides always look for an advantage on these grounds, but usually a player is is trying to get out of his contract on an idividual issue, while it seems here the clubs want too much general power. I mean if this goes through why even make contracts in the first place if you have no say where you might end up? Serie A has already lost so much since it's glory days and this won't help them as a league to maintain their standard or even improve it as I see most great players not coming to Italy anymore.

[lovelyrita782.livejournal.com]

Amen to everything you said.

On the plus side, at least I can sleep in on Sunday morning! Ha!