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Has player power gone too far?

There’s little doubting that there are very talented players in England who do excellent and admirable things for the EPL (Didier Drogba, for example, forks out millions to charity each year), and these individuals certainly deserve a little chunk of power when it comes to determining the rights of players, but do players in the top flight of English soccer now, quite simply, possess too much power?

Nobody wants to see soccer players forced to behave like slaves, with no choice handed to them other than to obey the owner who pays them peanuts, and all those associated with the game know that the players are clearly the real stars for the EPL brand, but does that make them the individuals who deserve to have control over everything in the game?

Take the instance of Carlos Tevez coming back to Manchester City. Here we have a classic example of a player who doesn’t respect those who pay his wages, and one who has shown disdain and a lack of respect for the fans who pay to watch his club. It would have been one of the season’s unlikeliest soccer betting tips to ever suggest Tevez would return to Man City after his previous conduct. When you bear in mind the fact that Tevez has previously appealed against fines imposed that initially seemed entirely justified, while now seeming to think that he can set the agenda when it comes to walking back into the club, you start to realise precisely how powerless today’s EPL clubs are when it comes to keeping their players on the straight and narrow.

If Tevez is not received back warmly by Manchester City fans, perhaps we can wisely conclude that the best check on player power may be the fans themselves, and the reactions they dish out from the crowd on a Saturday afternoon. Live soccer betting would have had some problems in guessing Tevez would return but now he has done so it is up to the fans to decide how to react.