Monthly Archives: May 2010

Who holds the aces in the three-way negotiation between Arsenal, Cesc Fabregas and Barcelona? Ultimately, outstanding footballing talent carries a huge amount of bargaining power, but the two football clubs involved still hold some powerful cards.

There is of course a 3-way negotiation going on.

In the negotiation between Fabregas and Barcelona, Fabregas holds the ‘market power’ associated with being an outstanding talent in a limited pool of exceptional players. Demand exceeds supply for a resource such as his. Barcelona have some market power of their own though. They are arguably the best club side in the world currently, with a midfield packed full of international stars. They are also the desired point of entry for Fabregas back to his native Spain. This gives them a certain amount of ‘network power’ – as gatekeepers to a grouping to which Fabregas wants access. I would assess the balance of this negotiation as a 2-2 scoring draw.

What about the balance of bargaining power between Arsenal and Fabregas? The market power that Fabregas has as a key talent is even greater with Arsenal than Barcelona. Having failed to win a trophy for 5 years will have weighted another key aspect of bargaining power against Arsenal. They need to retain a talismanic talent like Fabregas. The negotiating authority that Arsene Wenger would have had when Fabregas first joined the club as a 16 year old will have diminished, not just as a result of the Spaniard’s maturing talent, but also as a result of Wenger and Arsenal’s comparative lack of success over the last 5 years. I would score this negotiation 3 Aces to 1 in favour of the player.

And the balance of power between Arsenal and Barcelona? Barcelona have […]

Another week of turmoil at British Airways, involving record losses of over £500 million, more industrial unrest with Unite, and culminating in a near-riot by bitter airline staff at ACAS on Saturday night.

This dispute has now been running for over 15 months. This is highly unusual in post-Thatcher Britain, with all its obstacles against Union-organised strikes. What is going on here? The parties seem to have got themselves into a spiral of ‘lose/lose’, where it’s more important to damage the other side’s interests than to secure their own. If that’s the case, then how on earth are they going to break that cycle and strike a deal?

The headlines this morning were all about the ACAS Headquarters being invaded by ‘left-wing’ protesters, jostling and abusing Willie Walsh. They had apparently gathered as a result of Derek Simpson tweeting about the progress of the talks from the negotiating room.

From a PR point of view, the incident is a gift to Willie Walsh. It enables him to continue to paint Unite and its fellow Stewards and Stewardesses Union, BAASA, as extreme, divided and unreasonable. He could also be seen on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday morning, piously declaring how shocked he was to find Unite’s Simpson tweeting the confidential nature of the discussions in real-time. Some commentators have even been moved to sympathy for Walsh as a result of him being cornered by militants in this way.

However, it may be more revealing to consider why this behaviour is happening, rather than just condemning it out of hand.

This kind of gratuitously aggressive behaviour looks like it results from a ‘lose/lose’ attitude. This is the kind of attitude that develops when one party to a negotiation feels that […]