Fulham in hot water over Luca Murphy deal

[Friendsoffulham]

Club Statement: Luca Murphy



The Club has issued the following statement regarding Luca Murphy's move to Fulham.

The Board of Hartlepool United wish to make it clear that, following the signing of Luca Murphy by Fulham FC, we will be vigorously pursuing the Premier League club for compensation in line with an amount agreed by the two clubs as a condition of the player visiting Fulham in January.

Mark Maguire, Chief Executive, explained: "We agreed a figure with Fulham in good faith in January and allowed Luca to travel to London to get to know the facilities with a view to signing.

"We were then given a list of reasons why the player wasn't good enough to sign for them and they ended their interest.

"Subsequently, Luca's behaviour deteriorated to the extent that it was no longer appropriate to have him around our Youth Team, but when he left us both he and his agent were made aware that we reserved our right to pursue compensation.

"It is a sad irony that less than a year after Fulham fans were amongst those contributing to a fund to help save Hartlepool United from oblivion, their club is acting in such a way to secure the services of a player in whom Hartlepool United has invested since he was nine-years-old.

"The behaviour of the player, his agent and Fulham FC leaves a lot to be desired, and that is an understatement. We have written to Fulham to explain our position and will now pursue compensation through the appropriate channels.

"Hartlepool United will continue to invest in Youth Development, which is at the heart of what we do, but we need the support of the football authorities to protect us against this kind of underhand behaviour."

Chairman, Raj Singh, added: "As I suggested in my Programme notes on Saturday, we have been expecting something like this to happen and, frankly, it makes you strongly question the value of investment in youth if we are exposed to behaviour like this from clubs, players and agents.

"Hartlepool United nurtured this lad from nine-years-old and it is pretty clear that he has been encouraged to behave in a manner which orchestrates this move.

"Whether that is to save a few thousand pounds for a club earning over £100 million, or to earn an agent a fee, we will probably never know.

"What I do know is that we will protect ourselves and, whilst we won't give up on Youth Development, we will make sure we know who we are dealing with and who represents them.

"It will also unfortunately mean that we will never again trust a club with the courtesy we showed to Fulham and we hope that we will be protected by The FA in this regard."

https://www.hartlepoolunited.co.uk/news/2019/march/290319-hartlepool-united-statement-on-luca-murphy-move-to-fulham/

[Fulham76]

All sounds very underhand. Disappointing if true.

[hovewhite]

I saw this on news sights,the player let go by his club so an easy opportunity, trouble is a few years down the line Fulham get screwed by the player and agent!

[ScalleysDad]

With the key caveat that there may yet be more revelations I am actually glad there is a quote that inadvertently further cements the current separation between the fans and 'our' Club.

[Stoneleigh Loyalist]

It would be interesting to know the full story before passing judgement but is anyone incapable of underhand behaviour when dealing with a smaller club?

Let's hope that there is a simple explanation and we pay up as we cannot afford to get a bad reputation when dealing with youth recruitment.

[Burt]

Hope this "behavioural issue" doesn't manifest itself in other ways whilst he is with us...

[hovewhite]

Hope this "behavioural issue" doesn't manifest itself in other ways whilst he is with us...

that was my piont agent and player start a trend.

[ffcwickford]

I think we need to all cool down here. Hartlepool have openly admitted they let the player go after trials with us didn't go any further and he became disruptive amongst their youth setup. Other big clubs were interested but were 'dillying and dallying' over a 'potential' very big talent that we had been monitoring for quite a period. We made a move, the others' didn't - all's fair in love and war, except when one party isn't happy.

This time it is Hartlepool, sorry Jeff!

Luca could potentially be worth a lot of money given the right guidance under Colin's tutelage. It is potential the same as all our other youngsters. He has up to 27 months to show why we should tie him down to a five year contract and he will not cost £30m and he's a bloody centre back - woo hoo!

[Rinkender]

Hello Fulham Supporters,
Hartlepool fan here. Commiserations on your relegation. Always thought your club was a bit more traditional and less glamorous ( in a good way) than some of your London neighbours. Hope you don't do a Sunderland.

Can I offer you a little more insight into the signing of Luca Murphy.

For a small club like Pools, running a youth academy is relatively very expensive. We do it because we hope to bring youngsters through the youth ranks and perhaps one or two may make our first team. We also hope that on occasion we may even develop a talented youngster who can go on to bigger and better things and earn the club some much needed cash through a transfer. At our level we need to maximise as many income streams as possible simply to exist.

Luca had been with the club since he was 9 years old. He's worked hard, listened to coaches, developed his skills and was always keen to build on his natural talent. Pools had high hopes for him.
Several clubs were said to be showing an interest and it was Fulham that offered him a trial.
The result of the two week trial was that Luca was sent back and Fulham had reportedly lost interest as he was deemed not good enough. This will have been noticed by other clubs that may have been interested.
Immediately on returning to Pools Luca's attitude changed. He became disruptive, indisciplined and lost interest. Because of this Pools stopped picking him for youth matches.
Still a valuable member of the squad and not wanting to lose him, Pools were always going to offer him a contract (perhaps putting his recent poor attitude down to the effects of Fulham's "rejection")
At that point Luca had no other offers but when Pools offered professional terms he declined the opportunity to sign.
A few days later, Luca signs for the club that had previously dismissed him as not good enough.
Something fishy here.
The view on this is that Fulham always wanted to sign him. He was sent back after the trial with an instruction to not play any further games in case of sustaining an injury and not to sign anything as this would mean Fulham having to pay a fee to the club that had invested 9 years of time and money in him.
The "not good enough" assessment was also effective in other clubs losing interest.
Luca is a young man chasing his dream. Who can blame him?
There has most probably been some involvement from Luca's agent here (18 years old, no first team experience yet he has an agent!!) but for a premiership club ( for a few more weeks anyway) and with an income the likes of which Pools could never even dream of, to be associated with this deal is very vey disappointing.
By losing Luca in this way, Pools have lost a promising young footballer, a transfer fee to help sustain the club and the opportunity of further income from a sell-on clause. All vital elements of a club like ours in maintaining its very existence.
Try to enjoy the rest of your season, but at least be comforted by the many £millions you will receive as part of your parachute payments.

Good Luck.

[LittleErn]

Reminds me of how I felt when we only got £250,000 for Dembele from Celtic! How much is he worth now?

[FFC1987]

Hello Fulham Supporters,
Hartlepool fan here. Commiserations on your relegation. Always thought your club was a bit more traditional and less glamorous ( in a good way) than some of your London neighbours. Hope you don't do a Sunderland.

Can I offer you a little more insight into the signing of Luca Murphy.

For a small club like Pools, running a youth academy is relatively very expensive. We do it because we hope to bring youngsters through the youth ranks and perhaps one or two may make our first team. We also hope that on occasion we may even develop a talented youngster who can go on to bigger and better things and earn the club some much needed cash through a transfer. At our level we need to maximise as many income streams as possible simply to exist.

Luca had been with the club since he was 9 years old. He's worked hard, listened to coaches, developed his skills and was always keen to build on his natural talent. Pools had high hopes for him.
Several clubs were said to be showing an interest and it was Fulham that offered him a trial.
The result of the two week trial was that Luca was sent back and Fulham had reportedly lost interest as he was deemed not good enough. This will have been noticed by other clubs that may have been interested.
Immediately on returning to Pools Luca's attitude changed. He became disruptive, indisciplined and lost interest. Because of this Pools stopped picking him for youth matches.
Still a valuable member of the squad and not wanting to lose him, Pools were always going to offer him a contract (perhaps putting his recent poor attitude down to the effects of Fulham's "rejection")
At that point Luca had no other offers but when Pools offered professional terms he declined the opportunity to sign.
A few days later, Luca signs for the club that had previously dismissed him as not good enough.
Something fishy here.
The view on this is that Fulham always wanted to sign him. He was sent back after the trial with an instruction to not play any further games in case of sustaining an injury and not to sign anything as this would mean Fulham having to pay a fee to the club that had invested 9 years of time and money in him.
The "not good enough" assessment was also effective in other clubs losing interest.
Luca is a young man chasing his dream. Who can blame him?
There has most probably been some involvement from Luca's agent here (18 years old, no first team experience yet he has an agent!!) but for a premiership club ( for a few more weeks anyway) and with an income Pools could never even dream of, to be associated with this deal is very vey disappointing.
By losing Luca in this way, Pools have lost a promising young footballer, a transfer fee to help sustain the club and the opportunity of further income from a sell-on clause. All vital elements of a club like ours in maintaining its very existence.
Try to enjoy the rest of your season, but at least be comforted by the many £millions you will receive as part of your parachute payments.

Good Luck.

Hello, and welcome to the board. Not to be an apologist for Fulham (I'll obviously be a little biased) but I don't get what Fulham really get from acting out like this. I'd be interested in hearing what the full amount of compensation would of been but I'd be surprised if our elaborate plan was to potentially derail the career of a young player, to save a few thousand pounds. I like to think Fulham are great with the youngsters and would put them first really as we have quite a good reputation of bringing through youngsters. Be interested to hear the full story before speculating obviously but i'd be surprised by the evil Fuham narrative the papers are publishing.

[toshes mate]

Hi Rinkender.

Thank you for posting such a thoughtful appraisal of the situation regarding this young footballer from the perspective of Hartlepool.  My thoughts on this kind of post would be to reverse the situation and consider how I would feel if another club had done this to a promising youngster at Fulham, and I would most certainly not have been best pleased.  Having said that I realise I do not know the whole story, as from the lad's perspective and as from the  FFC perspective and so the whole is, as you say, 'fishy', but perhaps at the moment one sided and incomplete.
   
Regardless of all that, I would like to believe that if something untoward has happened a remedy that serves everyone's best interests can be found if only to restore Hartlepool's confidence and trust in other clubs, because academies are a really important feature of contemporary football and the system needs to stop exploitation of any kind from happening for them all to thrive.

[ALG01]

whatever else I do not think it is our clubs style to intentionally pull a stunt like this and hope there is a proper resolution. that bad publicity alone isn't worth the  hassle.

[Nero]

it could be he wasnt good enough for the fee involved, but with no fee it less of a gamble e.g what the fee would have been could now cover hes wages for the period of his contract so if he doesnt turn out good enough they see it as less of a loss

[love4ffc]

it could be he wasnt good enough for the fee involved, but with no fee it less of a gamble e.g what the fee would have been could now cover hes wages for the period of his contract so if he doesnt turn out good enough they see it as less of a loss

I'm guessing this.  He was told he wasn't good enough for the fee wanted.  Agent tells him go back, act like absolute spoiled prat and get let go.  Then we'll go back to Fulham as a free agent and get you a contract. 

Sounds like a nasty agent stunt to me that FFC took advantage of. 

[snarks]

whatever else I do not think it is our clubs style to intentionally pull a stunt like this and hope there is a proper resolution. that bad publicity alone isn't worth the  hassle.

Agree with that, it's not been Huw Jennings style either here or at Southampton

[Mike the White]

I don't think we can complain too much not getting much for Dembelle since we pulled a fast one on PSG to get him in first place, however I think we should have got a better deal for Hyndman when he went to Bournemouth.  Incidentally where is HE now?

Still think we should be to Harlepool and give them some compensation