Chelsea do not want to lose players as free agents anymore, and I completely get that and understand it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be acting on this and trying to stop it from happening.
I completely understand putting pressure on players to sign new contracts on their terms. The club should never be bullied by agents and forced to agree to terms they are not happy with. But negotiating is needed in all these cases and middle grounds need to be reached.
There should be a big human aspect with this as well. I think when you are dealing with an 18-year-old then you have to be careful, even more careful than if it was a more senior player, about how you are dealing with them and treating them.
At the end of the day, to tell an 18-year-old academy player that he is not going to play for Chelsea in any form unless he signs a new contract on their terms, IS quite simply, blackmail. It is. And I am afraid that treating a young rising talent in this way is just never going to sit right with me even if I can understand why Chelsea are doing it. It doesn’t mean I agree with the hard stance.
I do think that there is a time and a place to take such a hard stance, and friend of the site Felix Johnston explained it perfectly yesterday.
Felix said:
“I see both sides of the Acheampong situation, whether he should sign a new deal or not, but freezing him out is ridiculous.
“One thing I don’t think people realise is that the max length first pro contract you can sign as an academy player is a 2 year contract + the remainder of the season.
“That’s the contract that Josh is on. The one that he literally signed this year. It’s pretty ridiculous to expect Josh, as an academy player, to sign a long term deal already when he has a whole two years left. Freezing him out for it is very harsh and as an academy you have a duty to develop your players.”
I agree with this stance.
This isn’t some first team player who has outstayed his welcome and you are trying to sell. I didn’t even enjoy seeing this happen with players like Ben Chilwell and Carney Chukwuemeka in the summer, being forced to train with the U21s. But I can understand that much more because these are players we are actively looking to sell (still fuming about selling Carney though and the treatment he has had). But I can understand it and you wouldn’t see me moaning too much about those situations.
But to do this to Acheampong, a player who has a huge future and Chelsea should be doing all they can to keep and show him a pathway, is just wrong for me.
I don’t think they haven’t shown him a pathway as such, but they could have done more. I am waiting for more info on all of this and will compile a sourced article if/when I get it, but I have already heard from sources that on Acheampong’s side, they felt that he would have and should have had a bit more game time whilst Reece James was injured and they were using centre backs as a right back. And who can disagree with that?
With these things, we are never in the room. We don’t know what is being said and what is being negotiated. We don’t know if a player is being badly advised. So we should and I always will, take these things into account as well. And I am sure as always we will hear different sides of this story depending on who is pushing the news out. We have already heard and seen Chelsea’s briefings on it, they were very quick to get those out.
But once again, another contract situation that for me is just not sitting right. I just don’t think it’s the right way to go about it, especially with a young player that the club want to keep.
What is the right way? I don’t know. But it has to be one that avoids stopping an 18-year-old from doing the only thing he wants to do, which is to get on the pitch and kick a ball with his mates. It’s really poor from the club in my view. A little respect goes a long way. Imagine what this will make Acheampong feel like now, surely it will make him feel disconnected from the club even if he gives in and signs? And what will it make other players feel like and what effect will it have on the rest of the academy, who as I have reported in recent months, are not feeling great at all about life at Chelsea right now and many believe they have no pathways?
Appreciate others might see it differently, but this is my stance.