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How did the Union of Professional Football Players of Slovenia start?
The Union was started to protect the interests of footballers.
Before our organization no one was responsible for players' interest.
There's been a lot of problems eight years ago,
before the Union was established. I got the idea for it in Portugal.
I realized that players are protected there through certain instruments,
like collective agreement. Players can then focus on what's important,
they train and play as best as they can.
How many members does the Union have? -There's about 500 members.
The number is sometimes exaggarated but sometimes it's been even bigger.
There's 95 per cent of professionals and about 50 to 100 amateur players
who play in second league and lower. We offer membership when they register
with the Football Association. They sign the membership form
and pay the membership fee which in our case is minimal
since we want everyone to have the possibility of certain protection.
Who decides to join the Union?
Everyone who wants to make a living from football.
We want the professionals to be protected the same way as in England.
Apart from the wage there should be no difference.
What are the biggest achievements of the Union?
We've tried to organize protests, if not strikes.
The first one, in 2005, was successful.
This is when the rules changed about the status
and the registration of players with the Association.
It modernized the rules of the Football Association
so that they still provide the contractual stability.
This means that during the season clubs can't break the contract.
Neither can players. Before they could do that whenever they wanted.
If they do that anyway, they are punished financially
since they are obliged to pay the whole debt to the player
and pay out the rest of the contract, depending on the time left.
There can also be disciplinary measures.
The club that would evidently violate the player's agreement
can expect financial punishment, point deduction
or prohibition of registering new players in the next transfer window
or even the next two. This is taken from the FIFA regulations.
The FIFA regulations are set by our world organization FIFPro
with the intention to harmonize all the regulations of FIFA's members,
and there's more of those than members of UN.
So you offer footballers protection and also tournaments like this one,
where those who are unemployed can show themselves to agents.
When has this idea come about? -It would take at least an hour
to tell you what we offer to players. We are now working on 20 projects.
There's no messing about since they're all taken from successfull projects,
based in England, Germany, Spain. Besides basic offering of legal help
and working with the Football Association
we also participate in the tournament for unemployed players.
We helped the government write the new law on special retirement protection
for footballers and athletes. Last week we confirmed eight of our members
who'll get free insurance in Denmark. We have four humanitarian projects,
recently we started the project Footballer At Your Side
where we try to promote football in schools. The list goes on.
We're in Greece but the huge burden of the tournament is on your shoulders.
What is the Union's role in this?
Our role within the World Football Organization is such
that FIFA always turns to us first regarding Eastern Europe.
This is our sixth year in the competition.
For five years we've been active in the tournament,
organized by our main Association. Because we wanted to help
and promote the whole project, we decided to organize it this year
in Eastern Europe, in Solun, with the presence of Bulgarian
and Greek teams. Next year we'll probably go to Sofia
and we'll also be inviting Serbs who will be taking part in the project
for the first time this year. In the long-term,
we expect the tournament to include up to 8 teams,
similar to the one in Amsterdam.
Is there any data about how many players get signed afterwards?
Our team is very specific, based on the situation in Slovenia.
These are not players that aren't able to join any of the clubs.
Some of them play in our national team and have international experiences
but want to find better opportunities. I won't say they're unemployed
but they are players without contract and this is how we present them.
There's a big difference.
In Greece you won't find a good player without a club, but in Slovenia,
especially this year, a player can't be satisfied with the contract
they are offering at the moment. That's why they have the opportunity
to find employers abroad.
In the last years most of the players signed for clubs in Slovenia.
Three or four, that's about 10 to 20 per cent of them managed to go abroad
with our help, because of playing at this tournament.
For example, Elsner, the younger brother of our international player,
signed for a Czech club four months after the tournament in Amsterdam.
It doesn't necessarily happen immediately.
Probably, or so they told me before the tournament,
at least one of the players, before they even saw him play,
will go for a trial in Russia. Maybe someone else will go, too,
but that doesn't mean he'll be signed for the club. Three years ago,
in Lisbon, we had Blaž Pucelj who went on trial at Guimaraes,
however, he came back a week later.
We can't foresee what happens but they are visible.
Our play in Slovenia shows that the players are fit
and capable of beating Slovenian top league clubs.
This by itself is a big achievement. All the rest is icing on the cake.
What is the agent's response? How do you attract scouts to such tournament?
That's the most difficult part, also because of the timing.
It takes place just before the preseason training,
while in some countries the championship starts next week.
In spite of this we managed to attract more than 30 agents
and clubs' representatives. Not a small number.
You have to undestand that the agent who wants to sell a player
and get provision, can represent five or ten clubs if he has contacts.
So we can't precisely estimate how many clubs show interest,
directly or indirectly. In my opinion, there is definitely enough of them
the boys can see we're working hard. It's never perfect. It would be,
if there was whole Eastern Europe present, including Turkey, Kazahstan
and Azerbaijan. But those who are here will see some interesting games
and I hope they'll choose some of our players.
Is there any famous ex-footballers' names among the agents?
I have a list of them but ...
The best footballers mostly don't decide to become managers
since they don't need that. But most of them are football players.
Who else would be able to evaluate a player better than them?