There was some interesting news on Sunday that could indicate a redistribution of power in world hockey. American defender Steven Kaempfer has signed a one-year contract with the Detroit Red Wings. It would seem, what is so surprising? Kaempfer played more than 200 NHL games during his career. Even before he went to Kazan, he played for Boston more or less regularly. The American is 33 years old, definitely not a veteran. And Detroit, in its current form, is not a team that needs to set up tight face control. There is only one meaningful “but”.
The contract with Detroit Kaempfer was signed in the presence of a valid contract with the Ak Bars. Isn’t this a scandal? Such deals take us back to more than 10 years ago when there was no such relationship between the NHL and the KHL, and players flew freely across the Atlantic without paying attention to any piece of paper. The loudest passing of that period was the escape of young Alexander Radulov from Nashville to Salavat Yulaev. But even without that incident, there was enough chaos. Are we going back to the hard days? Or will things get worse?
The prerequisites for such escapes appeared a few months ago. The North Americans reported that the NHL is suspending the league’s Memorandum of Understanding, which it re-signs with the KHL every few years. Accordingly, the leagues in particular agreed on mutual respect for contracts. True, our overseas colleagues assured us that not only a contract war is expected. The rupture of relations will only affect the rent between the leagues and the clarification of the player’s status. KHL has never confirmed the fact of the gap.
Our colleagues from Business Online wrote in early May that Kempfer will not be returning to Ak Bars. He was one of the two foreign players of the Kazan club with a contract valid for the next season. Another – Canadian Jordan Weale – has not declared such a desire at this time. In Kazan they rely on the striker. But even if Kaempfer’s departure was natural, the contract with him must be terminated. And here is the main obstacle. According to the KHL base, the American was still an active Ak Bars player. We turned to the general manager of the Kazan club for comments.
“We knew that Kaempfer would not be able to return to the KHL, the player told us in April that he wanted to terminate his contract. We developed a normal relationship with Stephen, we calmly accepted his position. The club was already working on the legal registration of this situation, now it’s just a matter of formality,” he said.– said Marat Valiullin to our broadcast.
From these words of the chairman of Ak Bars, it becomes clear that this is just a bureaucratic overlap. He rushed to Detroit and delivered the news of Kaempfer’s signing a little earlier than expected. Either the Kazan club did not enter the necessary data in the CIB, so the KHL until recently considered the American an Ak Bars player. Just hours after Valiullin’s announcement, the club announced his departure from the player. According to our information, the contract was terminated at the player’s initiative and without compensation.
Why couldn’t the citizens of Kazan shake off the money because of the legionnaires’ regulation? It is clear that this is due to the good professional relations between the club and the player. It’s a kind of gratitude that Kaempfer made it through to the end of the playoffs despite calls from home. They say the defender was persuaded by a Michigan senator to return to the United States. However, he did not succumb to these persuasions and went on vacation with his teammates. Although Ak Bars did not go beyond the first round, it is unlikely to make any claims against the American legionnaire. He was by far the team’s best defender last season.
You can put an end to that in Kaempfer’s history. But we prefer the comma. Because his amicable separation with Ak Bars is a special occasion. Similarly, Traktor canceled the contracts of Czechs Will, Sedlak and Ghika to sign with Czech Pardubice. However, this will not apply to all legionnaires. There will always be a club that will resist and force the foreigner to either fulfill their contractual obligations or pay compensation from the player. And how will the situation develop in this case?
In parallel with the news about the transfer of Kaempfer to Detroit, rumors are actively circulating in the foreign press that two foreign goalkeepers are moving from Russia to Switzerland. Juha Metsola is allegedly supposed to sign a contract with Avtomobilist with Kloten, who has a registered contract in the KHL, and Shimon Grubets is offered to Zurich despite still being an Avangard player, with whom he won the Gagarin Cup a year ago. According to the text of the law, neither one nor the other has the right to sign contracts with other clubs. Only the law now applies to KHL contracts?
Usually, in order for a player to move from league to league, their new team needs to get a transfer card from their previous one. All these years the transfer flow with the NHL worked a little differently, but the IIHF-controlled leagues simply couldn’t steal players from each other. If transfers were free, the wealthier KHL would have taken everything that interested him on the continent all these years. However, our league complied with all the formalities. Now that Russia is isolated from international sports, the KHL may be in danger of being looted.
“The legality of the contracts made by foreign players with KHL clubs is not discussed in the congress agenda. For us, a contract is a contract. It doesn’t matter which hockey players we’re talking about.”, said IIHF President Luc Tardif. The French want to believe, but for some reason it is impossible to believe a single word.
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