Kosta Barbarouses and the cheap shots
5
A staggering lack of empathy
Kosta Barbarouses terminated his contract with the Wellington Phoenix a few weeks ago.
The club then issued a statement that it was a personal matter, and that after a long period of deliberation it felt that that was in the best interests of the player, and those close to him, that this was the right thing to do.
They added it was inappropriate to elaborate further.
He was to return to Melbourne. He has subsequently signed with the Melbourne Victory, provoking some pretty unseemly vitriol from this side of the Tasman.
The need for Barbarouses to return to Melbourne was given when the story originally broke. What else was he meant to do for a job when that moved happened? Sure; there are many vacancies for wine waiters in Melbourne, but that was hardly the best use of his skills.
Clearly this is upsetting for the Phoenix. Kosta was, after all, the player of the season for the side this year, and he was not an overseas marquee player.
It also hurts the club that they are not able to get a transfer fee out of this. It is another example, alongside the international window shambles and others, that the credibility of the tournament as a whole is called into question. That said, did the Phoenix pay a transfer fee in the first place?
Phoenix fans, rightly, feel short-changed; and these are pretty rough times. But the poison should be aimed at the A League rather than the circumstances being faced by Kosta himself. To attack the man under these circumstances is staggeringly callous.
He has not moved for money. He has moved for personal circumstances that he and the club want to remain private. That must be respected. Nobody has the right to demand details of his situation.
It may be an old-fashioned view but, human beings deserve privacy when required.
Please Wellington Phoenix fans; show some dignity here.
I just checked the 2017 Oxford Dictionary of Modern Society and guess what? The phrase ‘a right to privacy’ is missing.
This article is missing so much of the story. You can’t publish articles like this and call yourself ‘sports freak’ when you are have done so little digging on it. The best case I can guess is you are doing your research from the insta-snap-twit-face?
The story is that he wanted out of the Phoenix cause he was unhappy with the way the club was being run and was rumoured to be negotiating with the Victory a good couple of months before he was released, using the poor excuse of ‘personal reasons’ as the way out to mask his public thoughts. He did not want to honour his contract and see the last year out so started talking to the Victory then went to the Phoenix with his schtick.
Do some more research before publishing this load of bollocks.
This is a load of clickbait tosh.
Nobody is demanding any details or seeking to infringe Ko$ta’s privacy.
What Phoenix fans are quite fairly pointing out is that this is a guy who was paid more money than just about anyone else at the club, contributed very little, and then didn’t honour his contract for the most spurious of reasons.
I don’t think anyone really believes that he was desperately personally unhappy and unable to fulfil his contract for that reason. That’s the profession he’s in. I wish the Phoenix could walk away from players’ contracts when those players made the fans’ wives unhappy.
Fans have every right to be frustrated here. And Ko$ta deserves his fair share of the opprobrium. The Club also deserve a smattering, but then perhaps it’s not a terrible piece of business cutting loose an extremely expensive underperforming player.
Hey ‘Darth’ and Smithy- remember the old proverb: ‘Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes’. Your passion is misguided. Since when do you get to decide who should leave a football club and when?
Just accept that there is obviously a very legitimate and telling reason as to why he is going. Logically it must be highly personal hence any lack of real public clarity or elaboration. It’s not our/your business, so move on. Do you have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in the team, or something? No, thought not.
that’s pretty cool