They’re at it again – the Barcelona sporting director has spoken of Cesc’s genetic structure as Barca’s property once more, and all the while Arsenal fans simply roll their eyes.

It’s a sad state of affairs, protested most eloquently by Wrighty7, and something we’re already half-used to living with. But frankly, there are a handful of reasons why Barcalona ‘more than a club’ FC will never get the book thrown at them for blatant tapping up.

The first reason is that, as of this moment in time, they’re not actually tapping Cesc up, according to the law. The appropriate legislation stipulates that ‘agents of a player’ cannot make an approach to a club, and vice-versa, should that player be legally registered to another team.

The textbook scenario was when Peter Kenyon and Jose Mourinho, both formerly of Chelsea, met Arsenal leftback Ashley Cole in a hotel to discuss a potential transfer to the west London club.

It was an actual, physical meeting between the two parties while the player was definitely under contract.

Where that backs Barcalona out, unfortunately, is that they are neither approaching Cesc Fabregas, nor do they often use an official representative of the club to do the dirty deed.

Sure, they use the odd player like Xavi or Puyol to say nice things about the Arsenal captain and Bergaristain is the sporting director, but it’s all done through the club’s mouthpiece in the Spanish press. The press will do the hard yards for the club’s board and add speculative poison to the waters, in a bid to sway the player’s head in their direction.

So while we may be screaming for FIFA or UEFA to step in and do something, their inaction may be down to legal futility, rather than some continental bias towards the Spanish champs.

But bias could still be a major factor, too. Arsenal, as a club, really are caught between a rock and  a hard place with regards to their status in Europe.

Not only do they make quite a bit of money in the affluent English Premier League, but it has yet to win the Champions League. As a result, they remain an English club, unpopular in certain circles of UEFA’s administration, and at the same time have no gravitas compared to Barca, or even Celtic (see the Eduardo case study).

Overriding the whole mess is a growing cynacism amongst fans that this sort of thing is just the done thing in the dirty world of football. Who else here uses the very same media tactics in games like Football Manager to swing a player round to your cause? It’s just too effective for a club of Barca’s scale to ignore.

Ultimately, the ball remains in Arsenal’s court. Yes, Fabregas is tied to the longest ever contract signed in the Premier League and would command an enormous fee were Barcelona to buy him off our books.

But even so, the need to win trophies, as expressed by Ivan Gazidis, becomes more apparent if we are to keep our top players. Cliches are sometimes just overstated truths – while Fabregas owes his career to Arsene Wenger, there is a visible degree of happiness when he plays for his national team.

Arsenal themselves have all the potential and all the skill you can throw a box of kittens at. But the time to convert that into a league or cup win is becoming all the more pressing.

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Filed under: Arsenal, Blogging