The football establishment had something to mull about at the end of last week (August 25-29). An email from St. Pauli to FC Magdeburg was published online; it’s phot has been taken through a drawn window blind, adding some spice to the entire affair. The mail was sent from St. Pauli‘s sporting director about the transfer of Martijn Kaars from Magdeburg to the Hamburg club. It requires some criminal energy to go to these lengths to get such a photo taken. Rightly so, Magdeburg have forwarded the case to the police for further investigation. It’s likely that nothing will come off it and no one will be charged for breach of privacy and theft.

There’s two things here that make this affair stand out. First, is the fact that people really don’t seem to care about privacy and really wanted to get this information published. This could only have been people with knowledge of this email having been sent, thus acting intentionally, or the action was planned and the outcome was pure coincidence. Either way, the damage is done.

Second, it leaves Magdeburg with the urgency to find a solution, i.e. a replacement for Kaars. During last season he scored 19 goals and was thus an integral member of the team that only lost out on promotion during the final two or three matches of the last campaign. And this is where the upset begins. Magdeburg have already played three league games this season, lost two of them, but beat Dynamo Dresden away. They have additionally reached the second round of the German Cup. So far, he has scored two goals in the league and one in the Cup. This is already a very good performance, showing that Kaars has potential. St. Pauli coming in and buying him, therefore only logical. Yet, the league is already underway and the summer transfer period about to close. To find a replacement and hoping that this player will be just as impactful seems difficult if not impossible. The home made solution may be Rayan Ghrieb who has been signed from the French Ligue 2 club EA Guingamp and who already has scored twice: in the Cup against Saarbrücken.

However, there needs to be a better ruling for those cases. The Bundesliga starts tradionally later than the second division in Germany, so the clubs have more time to prepare and to assemble their squad. However, there should be a ruling which prevents such late signings unless the player or the coach is a free agent, particularly from lower league clubs.

The whole affair leaves an aftertaste: Magdeburg have lost a very good player while the season is already underway. The circumstances have left many damaged reputations on either side. While Kaars made it clear ‘to take the next step’, his departure nonetheless forces his ex-club to bolster their squad.

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