Paragraph 2 : The market
of purchase and sale of the players : mercato.
Through the definition (1) and the mode of making (2), the
market of sale and purchase of the players, that on whom the latter are
acquired could better render comprehensible the internationalization of
football.
2.1. Definition of the
mercato.
From Latin mercatus, mercato, comes from the gone term, which
appears for the first time in the French language in XIIe century, in the form
of marchiet. The Small one
Robert gives the following definition of it: «public
place of sale of goods and services. » This word is connected with
merchant, of the vulgar Latin mercatans, a form with the participle present of
the verb mercatare, derived from mercatus. In fact, the commercial word appears
in the French language starting from XIIe century, sometimes spelled marcheant.
If these two words are particularly old, the term of bargaining, does not
appear him for the first time in 1867.
Mercato, as its name indicates it, is applied in the jargon
footbalistic to indicate the annual market of the transfers of the players. It
opens towards the end of August and encloses on January 31, in theory, then
that it can be also spread out over all the year, without never being closed
again.
By having a name, the mercato, which is not a visible market
where one can discuss the price of the players with their offerers, marks
nevertheless an important stage in football business, another exploit to be
allotted to the XXème century, which the economy was completely
globalisée, football, his bet for the transformation of all the sporting
sector into field of commercial experiment and where, finally, the player, out
of shorts and Nylon billboard, is sold, rather well. Without being fought, the
market of sale and purchase of the players is extremely adulated by the
sporting clubs, in the clear sight to offer the services of new talents. Even
for the players, it is a good opportunity for the players who do not play or
little, even if they always are not courted.
The clubs often prefer to carry out large businesses and to
prepare their recruitment for the next season without trying to rebalance their
team whereas the possibility is given to them by it.
As one season of football starts in July and finishes in June,
the teams get information and move throughout the world to prospect the players
on whom they do not hide their interest. Thus, since they have of it really the
capacity, either, by the channel of the independent agents, or by the means of
that with which they pay a kind of premium, the teams, especially those of
Europe, manage to unearth and obtain, in time, payment of the best players of
the world.
That could be explained by the traditional law of supply and.
Domenica Six, an Agent of the players, holder of license FIFA on the matter,
explains that : « Frankly, carried out work is not always
sufficiently precise. Personally, I try to make a basic review with the clubs
while trying to determine their real needs with the maximum of exactitude. It
is curious, sometimes, to note that a club for submission to sticking the
services of such or such player at all costs. My axis of work is to identify
the type of player which the club needs really to be reinforced. Once elected,
I seek « the rare bird », even if this one is not always
easy to find at that time. »
But, it sied to retain that «the essence of recruitment
and the construction of the team are done before the starting of the
season». As for the players concerned, for Dobraje, sizeable agent
players, it acts of elements «in delicate position in a manpower, or that
the club does not want to preserve any more». There the true nature of the
mercato appears: a possibility of correction.
In France, there is also the supplement of the mercato :
the winter market of the transfers (December-31 18 January). It is addressed
almost exclusively to the evil classified of the championship or, more
specifically, to the clubs which are estimated like such. It was created to
polish or supplement certain teams. It is neither more nor less than one
correction. One can call that a prolongation of the period of jokers until
January 31. «: » It relates to a rather restricted fork of players.
It is only the occasion to reinforce one, even two stations. «For Domenica
Six, with the mercato «the clubs have a second possibility of recruiting
whereas they know their gaps compared to the first part of the championship.
The trainers can thus modify their manpower in a surgical way. Now,
some can be tempted to operate many changes because no rule
prevents them. » (The Humanity of January 05, 2000).
| 
