Football365.com: Wenger's Moral Crusade

Arsene Wenger seems to be on something of a moral crusade at the moment, and his issue of choice is the ubiquitous 'tap-up'.


A couple of weeks ago Wenger said: "If you don't show respect to other clubs I think that football is moving in the wrong way.


"You cannot come out like [president Ramon] Calderon has done at Real Madrid with Manchester United and tell them you cannot stop a player from leaving.


"You can destabilise any player in the world - that is irresponsible."


And he followed that up this Saturday with as clear an accusation as you're likely to get that there has been some perceived skullduggery afoot with regards to Barcelona's chase for Emmanuel Adebayor.


"There is a game going on in Europe where the big clubs tap up our players.


"They let us do the work and develop the players and then they think they can just come in and offer them big wages, but after they cannot come up with the transfer fee. It should be the other way round."


To an extent, you can see his point. The likes of Adebayor, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Nicolas Anelka were moulded into world-class players by Wenger, only for their heads to be turned by the riches of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Juventus.


Of course, you could equally argue that this is how Wenger has carved out a good part of his reputation. Despite giving off the the image of a footballing professor, only concerned with the purest aspects of the game, Wenger is possibly the finest businessman in the game. The £22million profit on Anelka proves that.


However, that's not really the point. Putting aside the idea that Wenger or Arsenal have never, ever spoken to a player before contacting their club, the point is that Wenger seems to be getting very hot under the collar about his own products being nicked from under his nose with the prospect of bigger and better things, when this is a tactic he in fact consistently uses to build his own stable of youngsters.


To pick two recent examples, Cesc Fabregas and Matthieu Flamini were plucked from Barcelona and Marseille respectively. Both clubs received compensation from tribunals, but both are still sore at having two talents taken from them. The differences between Arsenal's conduct at that of Barcelona and Milan are more or less semantical.


Wenger may argue that technically and legally Fabregas and Flamini were not under tight contracts and he has therefore done nothing wrong, but what he is complaining about this summer is a moral issue.


So what is the moral difference between the sort of 'tapping-up' Wenger is complaining about, and the tactics he uses to tempt young players to north London?


The difference is negliable, and Wenger should think carefully before making any further comments in the future.


And you can expect more of this. Should Cristiano Ronaldo move to Real Madrid this summer, next year Ramon Calderon will probably alternate between constantly 'not talking about' Fabregas and Kaka. We can anticipate more complaints from Wenger in 2009.


Nick Miller