They'd be taxing the change fo contract, not the physical movement of the player.
It won't happen though. Clubs would stop buying/selling as their income from selling players needs to be close to the amount they pay out for players.
Sure there's other income sources, but that pays players huge wages. Wages would have to drop like a stone for this tax to work. (Not that that would be a bad thing.)

Sure footballers get paid a lot but they do get the boot if they under perform. The income from other sponsorship does depend on their reputation. The FIFA proposals do limit spend to a percentage of the revenue would create financial stability for clubs. Cases where the club goes bust because of demotion to a lower level like Leeds should therefore end. Though players contracts should be such that the player has to take a pay cut if the team is demoted, and they should be forced to stick with their demoted club for the duration of their contract, rather than bail out to get to another premiership club.

This is kind of not actually true, at least not in the short term. A footballer's contract is for a set number of years - usually three, although Bale's is apparently six - and can't be terminated early unless both parties come to an agreement. And why would the player forgoe a massive sum of money to allow the contract to be terminated early? There are numerous cases of footballers who for various reasons (lack of skill, fallout with the coach etc) aren't picked to play sitting on a lucrative contract until it's end making millions for essentially doing nothing. Winston Bogarde is the most famous example.
So basically once the contract is signed, unless there are specific get-out clauses, whether you're actually any good or not is irrelevant. And one three year premiership contract is pretty much enough to set you up for life (the bottom end of premiership wages is roughly £30,000 per week - multiply that by 150...).


This just shifts the argument away from profit onto revenue. Then you get people trying things like Manchester City's owners sponsoring their own stadium for £150m a year, when the going rate is about £10m a year.


Well that particular issue is often a mutually beneficial thing - player gets to continue to play at a higher level, club doesn't have to pay his significant wages for several years. And most league's do have a 'parachute payment' system to allow for existing contracts to be managed even though revenue is reduced. But it's a definite truth that some clubs do 'gamble' with putting players on long contracts on the basis that they'll play well to keep them. This doesn't always work out.

The finances of football clubs are generally unrealistic and silly, but you also can't apply all the normal financial rules to them, as they just don't operate in the same way. The market they operate in is odd in lots of ways e.g. demand is actually quite inelastic as there's little actual competition between 'suppliers' and the incomes are essentially not immediately related to performance in the same way a widget companies are. Also the basic premise of the UEFA rules (FIFA don't give a monkies by the way) are not entirely to promote good business, they are to promote good sport i.e. to level the playing field as much as possible. Which obviously doesn't apply to say Zanussi and Smeg.

The basic premise though that clubs shouldn't spend money they haven't got, you can't really argue with that.

I dont see how - we are not stopping you moving we are just taxing the golden hello you are being paid

Yes but the contract could also include exclusions to protect the club. The risk is that the contract could bankrupt the club if he breaks his leg in week one and is unable to play, though I would imagine that the club would get insurance for that eventuality. I would imagine that the lawyers and agents would have spent weeks over the small print of the contract.