Feud brewing over contract of 17-year-old ice hockey prodigy

Agent of Mikael Granlund accuses league side Kärpät of tampering with contract

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A mighty squabble has developed in the northern city of Oulu between the Finnish Ice Hockey League team Kärpät and the backers of the 17-year-old player sensation Mikael Granlund.
      On Tuesday Granlund was removed from the Kärpät line-up just hours before he was to appear in a Finnish SM-Liiga match.
     
According to Granlund’s agent Ilkka Larva, Kärpät of Oulu have tampered with the required Finnish Ice Hockey League player agreement after Granlund signed it.
      Granlund played his first league game on Thursday of last week against Espoo Blues. Granlund turned 17 the same day.
     
”On the 26th of February (the day of the Blues match), Mikael signed the required player and insurance contracts with Oulu Kärpät. The length of the contract was left blank at that point. Both copies of the contract remained with Kärpät. Afterwards the words ‘two years’ have appeared in the documents to indicate the contract length”. Larva says.
      Larva adds that as an underage person Granlund was not even legally entitled to sign such documents.
      “This is unacceptable. We would have been fine with the boy playing for Kärpät for free for the remainder of the season, but the adding of the dates is bang out of order. Therefore we have signed out of the contract with Kärpät.”
     
Kärpät managing director Juha Junno describes Larva’s claims as outrageous.
      “Kärpät has a player contract with Granlund from 2007, which is in force until the end of the season 2010-2011. It seems that the lad has become a pawn in some dirty game”, says Junno when interviewed on the telephone during a player scouting trip to the Czech Republic.
      In the view of Kärpät of Oulu, the contract required for the actual Finnish Ice Hockey League matches was signed for five games on a so-called tryout basis, but Granlund’s basic contract remains in effect until the spring of 2011.
     
In Junno’s view the contract between Kärpät and Granlund is watertight.
      Larva disagrees.
      “With the so-called junior contract one cannot appear in the Finnish Ice Hockey League. Kärpät offered us a Finnish Ice Hockey League contract at the end of February, but we turned it down. Yesterday we presented Kärpät with a counter-offer to which we have not received a response yet”, Larva says.
      Junno admits that haste when signing the crucial papers has contributed to the confusion.
      “Our team leader acquired Granlund’s signature to the needed papers after the morning practice session. Granlund was in a hurry to catch a plane, and was therefore unable to fill in all the blanks. They were filled in later on in the office, before the documents were sent to the League. No wrongdoings were carried out by Kärpät”, Junno affirms.
     
According to information received by Helsingin Sanomat, in recent days Granlund has been offered to several teams in the Finnish Ice Hockey League. According to some sources, Granlund would have already signed a contract for the 2009/2010 season with Espoo Blues.
      Blues managing director Tom Kivimäki denies such claims.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Oulu Kärpät too good for Espoo Blues - 4th Finnish title in five years (14.4.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat