Clint Dempsey ‘refusing to play for Fulham’
Posted on August 17, 2012 8:23 pm
Clint Dempsey has reportedly told Fulham that he doesn’t want to play for them any more. That is the claim being made by Fulham manager Martin Jol, who today confirmed that Dempsey will play no part in Fulham’s season opener against Norwich. Fulham have responded by fining him two weeks wages.
Dempsey has been heavily linked with a move to Liverpool this summer, with Arsenal and West Ham also having been heavily linked with him. Dempsey is coming off an excellent last season, where he cemented his reputation as one of the Premier League’s best attacking midfielders after scoring 23 goals in all competitions. Dempsey made the decision that he wanted to move to a bigger club.
Dempsey hasn’t been involved with Fulham’s pre-season and has been training separately to the rest of the squad as he was trying to engineer a move away from the club, with Dempsey allegedly telling his teammates that a move to Liverpool was imminent. At 29, this summer probably represented Dempsey’s last chance at getting a move to a bigger club, and getting a large contract in the process.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers admitted that Liverpool were interested in Dempsey earlier this summer, and in fact, an over-eager staffer at NESN put up a story (which was hastily removed) on their website saying that a deal had been done and Dempsey was a Liverpool player a few weeks ago.
What seemingly happened was that Liverpool made an enquiry as to what Fulham would want for Dempsey, then were put off by the price quoted, so didn’t make an offer. It is believed Fulham were looking for £10m for Dempsey, which is his market price, but with him being in the final year of his contract and being 29, it is unlikely that Fulham will receive such an offer from any club.
Martin Jol isn’t happy with what he believes is Liverpool’s part in unsettling his player.
“That was very disappointing,” said Jol. “There was never an offer. Clint himself told everyone he was going to Liverpool so we really thought there was quite a firm interest in him.
“Even Rodgers told everyone he was interested in Clint Dempsey, but our people never had an offer on the table. If you have shown interest in a player, especially in England, you have to follow it up with an offer. They didn’t.”
Jol’s wrong there. There is a big difference between making an enquiry and making an offer. Any club can make an enquiry about any player. It is then up to both parties what happens next. Fulham responded to Liverpool’s enquiry by quoting a figure. Liverpool thought that figure was too high and decided not to follow up on their interest. That’s not an unusual or unreasonable stance for Liverpool to take, just because Fulham quote a price doesn’t mean Liverpool are duty-bound to pay it.
Jol followed that statement up by saying that he doesn’t believe that Dempsey has a future at Fulham any longer. “Clint was not involved over the last four weeks so he is not going to be in the squad. He is not committed to the club. He wants to leave. I would like to keep him, but I think it’s impossible. It’s a sad and an almost embarrassing situation.”
“Maybe Liverpool will come back… I can assure you our chairman is strong enough. At first we didn’t want to get rid of him, later on we had to change our position. But our view is that we won’t let Dempsey go on the cheap.”
Dempsey is currently in football limbo. Fulham are sticking to their position, Liverpool are sticking to theirs, and unless either party changes their position, or another club makes an acceptable offer for him, Dempsey will be forced to eat humble pie and apologise to Jol and Fulham and resume playing again, or face sitting out at least half a season until the next transfer window.
Dempsey isn’t the only Fulham player causing Martin Jol headaches at present. Jol has admitted that he spoke to the agent of Moussa Dembele to basically tell him to stop making the interests of other teams in Dembele public, after Real Madrid’s interest in Dembele was revealed by his agent to a Dutch newspaper.
Also, Jol is increasingly concerned about the future of Brede Hangeland. Hangeland has been the key player in Fulhams’ defense since arriving at the club, and has developed into one of the Premier League’s best players at that position, is also in the final year of his contract and has not signed the new contract offered to him by Fulham.
It’s Dempsey at fault here, why blog on Jol’s comments? Dempsey is trying to force a move away from Fulham and force their hand into selling. He’s now burnt his bridges at Fulham and Fulham will look to sell him now – cheaper than he would have been.
This is the same behavior he displayed when leaving the NE Revolution…
also not far from the behavior shown by several other recent Fulham players who have left after falling out with Martin Jol, including Bobby Zamora…
but TBH I’m not sure I believe this at all…
Well:
1) This stuff seems to follow Jol around
2) Following whatever he’ll say next makes for the far more interesting blog post
3) Jol’s weaving a tale one would have to be pretty gullible to believe.
Something is rotten in the state of Craven Cottage and methinks Jol protests too much. When a manager publicly blames the player and other club in one statement, it’s a good bet he’s got an agenda…likely to cover his own ass.
Why would Dempsey even have to refuse to play if as Jol’s says, “Clint was not involved over the last four weeks so he is not going to be in the squad” for the match against Norwich?
No one comes out of this smelling like a rose.
It’s the curse of being outside the big 5 or 6 clubs in the EPL. You can’t keep your players no matter how well you’ve built your club, and even the players with the best of honorable intentions dream of one day getting a huge payday from a club like Man U or Chelsea or Liverpool.
As for Dempsey–he is a classy guy but this whole incident makes him look bad. Until his contract is over he is duty bound to play for his club. He can communicate his wishes to be sold or to be traded to team management but that’s all you can do.Holding out until you get your way may be common in the NFL but I suspect not so common in England. It is an action that is sure to scare off other clubs and make them view him as a “cancer” or a problematic player.
This is how he got his transfer to Fulham from NE…I guess he thinks it’ll work again
Classy guy? C’mon, there is nothing classy about this move at all. I find it odd that people continually blame the team when a guy who is under contract throws a hissy fit when he wants to bail to a “bigger club” while he is still under contract. This is all on Dempsey. Period.
And to think some people take opposition to me calling him “Douche” instead of “Douce”. This is a shit move and he’s being a baby. Maybe Fulham should work out a loan to an MLS team and see how much he likes that.
You know that he can reject a move to anywhere, right? A club can’t just loan a player to wherever because they feel like it. ****ing moron.
lol
some people think the global game is the same as other American sports.
Typical yank behaviour
That’s right. We have had no good players strung along by managers. We have had no players stay loyal to or depart as gracefully as they can from demoted clubs. Our players have done less than any others to promote youth soccer in our country or other countries. And we have not had players that have supported fair play and good effort at all levels. By no means have we had a perfect gentleman give total effort to his team at Fulham while being the good man that he is, to such an extent that he earned the armband and got a pub at the stadium named after him. If any American had done such a thing, it might have disturbed Derp’s perception of “typical yank behaviour.” (You know, that ‘u’ in “behaviour” is entirely unnecessary and inefficient. I shouldn’t bother to point it out, but it is one of those things you lot insist I am inferior at.
Dempsey may have had some kind of gentleman’s agreement that he could move on when his contract got down to a year, just so Fulham could get a nice fee for him. Now they’re playing hardball. It’s just business, if fulham somehow look bad holding on to them they might knock a few mil off the asking price. Here’s hoping Milan swoop in and grab him, he’d be a perfect fit.
I suggest people read the comments section of this post in addition to waiting a hot second before bashing Dempsey. http://www.noshortcorners.com/2012/08/the-jozy-show.html
Dempsey says “The truth will come out,” so this definitely isn’t nearly the end of this drama
either he will explain his side of the story or he’s revealing that Paul Pierce is gay.
I just really hope he does likes his old teammate Carlos Salcido and decides to sign with a club from Monterrey.
Hopefully not Tigres.
Fulham have known Dempsey has wanted to move for a long time. This is not news.
Liverpool FC is behaving greedily in this transfer, it is obvious that they want and need a proven goal scorer like CD yet they hesitate in spending 10million pounds meanwhile they have carroll among other flops which cost them well over 100million. Fulham is in the unfortunate situation being the smaller club among a league with 5 or 6 big spenders that lure and buy football with money. 10million isnt that much for a great and determined player like dempsey
Apparently it is.
Wow, here I was thinking that clubs were allowed to negotiate transfer fees, and if they couldn’t get the selling club to sufficiently lower their asking price, they were allowed to break off negotiations and look at other players.
Didn’t realise clubs are duty-bound to pay the first price they are quoted.
Players should never “go on strike” to engineer a transfer, and clubs trying to buy should never go public on wanting to sign a player unless terms are being discussed.
Both are sadly all too common these days
Another gem from Jol:
“To say he refused to play is probably a bit harsh but he wanted to move and if you want to move, you don’t want to take risks so you don’t want to play in case you get an injury. So for me that was a very awkward situation and it was for him as well.”
Ummm, yeah an awkward fine to boot.
I noticed that yesterday, so Dempsey hasn’t refused to play??
I don’t see how this changes anything. Dempsey doesn’t want to play to avoid an injury because he wants to transfer.
Regardless of the reason, he’s still refusing to play.
I thought Fulham were going to hold him out. Not Dempsey refusing to,play.
I don’t believe the story, because Jol changed his accusation towards Dempsey. We will find out what is going on ,soon enough.
Arsenal need to sign him.
Besides M’Villa from Rennes to replace Song as an “attacking holding midfielder” , Dempsey now is a more clinical finisher than both Podolski and Giroud. And unlike those two, Dempsey is a proven commodity in the Premier League.
Just as important, neither Podolski or Giroud have established themselves in the Champions League, since Podolski choked under the pressure when he was at Bayern and Giroud hasn’t yet played in club football’s toughest competition.
He would be a great player for Arsenal.
I think Podolski and Giroud will do just fine for Arsenal though.
I agree, Dempsey would be a good factor for Arsenal.
Something to note is that this article, and most others I’ve read, have quotes from everyone but Clint. So anyone referring to him a Dbag needs to point the finger at themselves. Dempsey is not guilty until proven innocent; we’ve only heard one side of the story.
I find it hard to sympathize with Fullham when the whole system of buying and selling players’ contracts is a gross violation of labor rights. How’d you like it if your employer could prevent you from quitting and finding a job elsewhere? It’s hard to feel to sorry for multimillionaires, either, but I for one hope that Clint is allowed to practice his craft at the highest level possible, and that those holding him back from such are punished with a lower transfer fee than if they were willing to do right by their star.
Dempsey should pull a Tibor Balog and go to the European Court of Human Rights.
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