Author: Fatjon Baze, Klevis Paloka
Unfulfilled contracts, delayed salaries for months, as well as unpaid social and health insurance for years have plunged the vast majority of Albanian football clubs into informality.
An investigation by PSE reveals that Albanian football is steeped in informality and contracts with footballers are not enforced. Paying wages on time and paying social and health insurance is considered a luxury.
Through 10 testimonies received from current or former football players, who during their careers have played in dozens of Albanian clubs, it is revealed that the phenomenon of unpaid salaries for months and missing insurances for years occurs in the teams of the superior category, those of the first category and likewise the second and third categories.
The Albanian Football Federation, as the main regulatory institution, appears to have continuously neglected to deal with the situation by not penalizing clubs for non-fulfillment of contractual statements.
Informality, cross-legged in Albanian clubs
Daniel Xhafaj, the famous ex-footballer, finds it easier to speak from the United States of America about the situation of Albanian football, admitting that informality prevails there.
"Out of 19 years of football career in Albania, I have only had insurance for six years. Even those clubs that say they pay social security, in fact they don't ," he told PSE.
After a career with the best teams in the superior category, such as Flamurtari , Dinamo , Teuta , Tirana and Skënderbeu , he has settled in Florida as coach of the Celtic-U15 team.
His colleagues in Albania are not so brave as to talk about the problems they encounter, also because their sports careers would end. Although under the condition of anonymity, they tell about WHY the problem of clubs.
"I have been part of several teams in Albanian football such as Turbina, Iliria, Besëlidhja, Dinamo, Mamurrasi, Kamza, Burreli. Social and health insurance was not paid to me by any of the teams I played for," says a footballer.
"Dinamo, Besa, Teuta are the three teams I played with in Albania. My social security has never been paid ," says another.
Non-receipt of salaries on time and full non-fulfillment of financial obligations from the moment of signing the contract with footballers is also a prevalent problem.
"I have always received my salaries in person (not through the bank), and I want to emphasize that they are given when the presidents want them. No one can respond to them ," emphasizes a former footballer of Teuta , Laçi and Kukës.
The fear of career destruction, but also the lack of institutional culture, makes football players often speak anonymously and remain silent about the problems they encounter with the implementation of contracts.
"We ourselves, the players, are negligent towards institutions, because if we complained even a little about our rights, we would be won, without even starting the trial, but because we do not have a culture of institutions, we do not take the step and suffer through our own sweat," a former Teuta footballer tells PSE.
Ildo Muho, a 24-year-old ex-footballer, has decided to talk about WHY, also because he now has nothing to lose. In fact, not receiving payments while he was active as a footballer forced him to end what he thought would be his career two years ago.
"I was part of the Besa team of Kavaja for a season, as well as the Egnatia team. At Besa for six months I did not receive a single Lek. At the Egnatia team the salary was enough for ourselves, only for travel and expenses. There was no mention of social security at all ," he said.
Another young man who does not want to be identified tells PSE that he was also forced to give up his dream of a career in football, because the clubs where he started playing rarely paid him.
"I was part of two well-known teams such as Tërbuni and Kamza. In both teams we had problems with payments from the club, as we were not paid regularly, but only once every three or four months. Under these conditions, it was impossible for me to continue," says the former footballer.
The interviewed footballers show that, even in cases where some clubs pay monthly through banks, the declared amount is many times smaller than the real one, thus avoiding the high social and health insurance.
Footballer contracts and their enforcement remain an issue where transparency is difficult to achieve, even in cases where municipalities own shares in clubs and regularly provide them with donations or help with unpaid debts from taxpayers' income.
PSE sent five contract transparency requests to municipalities that own shares in football clubs, but in no case were the players' full contracts made available to them.
The Municipality of Shkodra, which is a 100% shareholder in the Vllaznia club , only informed about the total amount of around 66,000,000 lek per year that it provides to the club, while the Mayor of Shkodra, Voltana Ademi, refused to comment on whether the players' contract obligations were paid on time.
The Municipality of Tirana, a 34% shareholder in the Tirana club , delegated the request to the club's president, Refik Halili, who, after calling and pledging to be transparent about the contracts, failed to do so by not responding again.
The Municipality of Korça responded only after a complaint to the Commissioner for the Right to Information, informing that it only has 30% of the shares, while the rest is managed by the president Ardjan Takaj. The president of Skanderbeg refused to respond on this issue.
The municipality of Kurbini, which owns 30% of the shares of the Laçi club, stated that it did not participate in the signing of contracts between the players and the club. While the president of the team, Pashk Laska, initially promised that he would give the contracts and then did not keep this promise.
The Municipality of Lezha responded to the request by sending only the names of the players of the Beselidhje team and an uncompleted contract form, addressing us to the club's president, Gjokë Noka. The latter responded with arrogance to the request for transparency of the contracts.
"If I don't pay the salaries to the players on time, then you have come to pay them?!", Noka addressed to the PSE journalist.
ALF in apathy in front of the situation
Former Elbasan footballer Ervin Llani, who is now a restaurant manager in Boston, decided to take a bold step five years ago. He sued the Elbasan football club before the Albanian Football Association's Conflict Resolution Chamber for non-enforcement of his 2010 contract.
The Chamber of Conflicts is the only Albanian body that, serving as a court, deals with players' contract issues, at a time when the country's normal courts do not take over the resolution of sports issues.
"Despite signing a contract worth 3,000,000 lek, it was only implemented for the first five months. Meanwhile, the rest was not implemented, causing the Elbasan club to owe me 1,500,000 lek ," Llani told PSE.
The former footballer managed to win the case in the Albanian Football Association (AFH) body in 2012, although this decision has not yet been implemented and the federation has not taken any measures to penalize the Elbasan club.
"That decision was never implemented. I sent several complaints to the Albanian Football Association, but it was justified by the fact that Elbasan has no money and that it has to wait until it receives some funds. That decision remains just a piece of paper, because I don't think it will ever be implemented ," Llani stressed.
Former footballer, Mario Morina, told PSE that it took him three years after the Albanian Football Association's decision to receive around 1,000,000 lek from the non-payment of the contract signed with the Tirana club.
"I won the trial against Tirana at the Conflict Resolution Chamber in early 2013 and I only managed to receive the money I was owed from the club in September 2016 ," he emphasized.
PSE sent continuous questions and requests for interviews to the AFL since November 2016 regarding the implementation of the regulatory role that this institution has for club contracts, but never received an answer.
An official request to the AFL was also sent on February 3, but no response was received.
In many cases, the AFL has witnessed compromises between footballers and clubs, even when they conflict with the interests of the former.
Such is the case of the footballer, Klejdis Branica, who in March 2015 sued the Shkumbini club before the Albanian Football Association , demanding the termination of the contract and the payment of back wages for the period February-June 2014. The Albanian Football Association managed to prove the non-payment for the alleged months, but in the end decided only on his right to terminate the contract, this after Branica withdrew his right to wages along the way.
"I made a compromise with Shkumbini to be free to play with other teams ," Branica told PSE.
At a time when, from a legal point of view, a contract is considered violated, when a party does not fulfill certain obligations, Albanian footballers must make a compromise to forgive the arrears of wages in order to be released.
In fact, the breach of contracts is a phenomenon that is tolerated only when it happens to Albanian footballers.
Foreign players who join Albanian teams, if they have problems with contractual obligations, then they submit their complaints to the Union of European Football Associations, EUFA, and not to the AFL.
In the event that UEFA judges that the rights of these players have been violated, then the Albanian teams are forced to quickly pay the amount due, because the penalties applied are severe.
The Tirana team had its transfer market blocked for the first half of 2017, because it was unable to pay the 5,000 euro debt to former Bulgarian footballer Martin Kavdanski on time.
But, apart from the AFL, other state institutions are also responsible for the informal situation in which the clubs find themselves.
Legally, every football club is registered as a business and then equipped with a NIPT, which makes them have obligations for employees to the branches of the General Directorate of Taxes and the State Labor Inspectorate.
The PSE addressed the Labor Inspectorate, asking whether checks had been made on the implementation of employment contracts and the obligations arising from them at the Tirana football club.
This institution responded that the last check made on the Tirana team took place at the beginning of 2015 and that there were no other checks afterwards.
"This team has not paid salaries since February 2014, while social security contributions have not been paid for 16 months, claiming that there is a lack of funds from the Municipality of Tirana, which is also a shareholder of this entity, and even due to non-payment, the entity has been blocked by the Taxes branch, Tirana ," the letter, dated March 3, 2015, states.
The difficult situation, which the Albanian football clubs are facing, seems to be killing every day the dreams of young people who want to have a football career in Albania, and of Albanians for a National Team that will always make them proud.
