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 six years of insurance. Even those clubs that say they pay social security, in fact they don't", he said about WHY.
After a career with the best teams of the superior category, as Fixtures, Dynamo, Teuta, Tirana and Skanderbeg, he has settled in Florida as the team's coach Celtic-U15.
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 was part of several teams in Albanian football such as Turbina, Iliria, Besëlidhja, Dinamo, Mamurrasi, Kamza, Burreli. Social security and health insurance have not been paid to any of the teams I have played for., – says a football player.
"Dinamo, Besa, Teuta are the three teams I played with in Albania. Social security has never been paid to me", – 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 the salaries in my hand (not through the bank), and I want to emphasize that they are given when the presidents want. No one can replicate them", - emphasizes a former football player Teuta, Lac 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 the institutions, because if we were to complain even a little about our rights, we would have won, without starting the trial yet, but because we don't have a culture of institutions, we don't take the step and suffer. our sweat", – a former football player tells about WHY Teuta.
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 i Kavaja team for one season, as well as the Egnatia team. I have not received a single Lek from Besa for six months. At Egnatia's team, the salary was for ourselves, only for the road and expenses. Social security was not even discussed 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 to 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 club Vllaznia, informed only about the total amount of about 66,000,000 lek per year that he gives to the club, while the Mayor of Shkodra, Voltana Ademi, refused to comment on whether the contract obligations of the footballers were paid on time.
Municipality of Tirana, shareholder with 34% in the club Tirana, delegated the request to the president of the club, Refik Halili, who, after calling and promising to be transparent about the contracts, did not do so by not answering anymore.
The municipality of Korça responded only after a complaint to the commissioner for the Right to Information, informing that it has only 30% of the shares, while the rest is managed by the president Ardjan Takaj. The president of Skanderbeg declined to comment on the matter.
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 football players of the team COVENANT and a type of unfulfilled contract, addressing us to the president of the club, Gjokë Noka. The latter responded arrogantly to the request for transparency of 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
The former football player of Elbasan, Ervin Llani, who is now the manager of a restaurant in Boston, decided five years ago to take a bold step. He sued the Football Club of Elbasan for the non-implementation of his 2010 contract before the Conflict Resolution Chamber in the AFL.
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 the fact that I signed a contract of 3,000,000 ALL, it was implemented only for the first five months. Meanwhile, the rest was not implemented, causing the Elbasan club to owe me 1,500,000 lek", – Llani said about WHY.
The ex-footballer managed to win the case in the body of the AFL in 2012, although this decision has not yet been implemented and the federation has not taken any measures to penalize the club Elbasan.
"That decision was never implemented. I sent several complaints to the AFL, but it was justified by the fact that Elbasan has no money and that it has to wait until it receives any funds. That decision remains just a piece of paper because I don't think it will ever be implemented.", - emphasized Llani.
The former footballer, Mario Morina, told PSE that it took him three years after the decision of the AFL to receive about 1,000,000 lek from the non-payment of the contract with the club of Tirana.
"I won the trial against Tirana in the Chamber of Conflict Resolution at the beginning of 2013 and I managed to get the money due to me from the club only 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 football player, Klejdis Branica, who in March 2015 sued the club of Shkumbin requesting termination of the contract and repayment of arrears of wages for the period February-June 2014. FHF managed to prove non-payment for the claimed months, but in the end decided only on his right to terminate the contract, this after Branica withdrew on the way from the right to wages.
"I made a compromise with Shkumbin to be free to be active with other teams", – said Branica about 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 team Tirana was blocked from trading for the first half of 2017, because it was unable to pay on time the debt of 5,000 euros to the former Bulgarian footballer, Martin Kavdanski.
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.
PSE addressed the Labor Inspectorate, if checks had been made on the implementation of employment contracts and the obligations arising from them in the football club Tirana.
This institution replied that, the last check done on the team i Tirana it happened at the beginning of 2015 and that there were no other checks after that.
"This team has not paid salaries since February 2014, while social security has not been paid for 16 months, with the claim that there is a lack of funds from the Municipality of Tirana, which is also a shareholder of this entity, even for the reason of non-payment, the subject has been blocked by the Tax-Taxes branch, Tirana", - is emphasized in the letter, which is dated March 3, 2015.
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.
