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    COLUMN: A contract buyout is a legal remedy for Japeth Aguilar

    A contract buyout is a legal remedy for Japeth Aguilar
    Dec 8, 2021
    PHOTO: Marlo Cueto
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    CHICAGO — If he likes money, huge bundles of it, Japeth Aguilar must be thinking hard about that rich B. League proposition that fell on his lap last October.

    It was for $35,000 (around P1.7 million) a month multiplied by 11 months, which is how teams in Japan compensate players for an eight-month long season.

    Assuming Japeth comes to terms on a three-year deal, his total income balloons to $1.15 million. Under the current exchange rate, that's a staggering P58 million.

    For now, though, that ship has sailed because of visa restrictions in Japan. But once the pandemic eases and the borders are opened again, that ship will be sure to come circling back.

    And that's when the complications take effect.

    Japeth is currently under contract only until Dec. 31. However, per a PBA memo, if he can't agree on an extension with Ginebra, his contract automatically "rolls over" for at least another month.

    Which is an absurdly one-sided arrangement. Teams can just kick an unwanted player with an expired contract on the curb. But a team there is aided by a provision that allows them to cling like leeches on players they want to keep.

    Thank God, lady justice is blind. She would have been mortified at how imbalanced the scales are here.

    In the PBA, teams appear to view its relationship with players not as a partnership but as an ownership.

    We saw that play out in the Kiefer Ravena saga. We ached at how Ray Parks Jr. had to go through hell to be free from the clutches of TNT. And we just witnessed the sadness of Marc Pingris and P.J. Simon being allegedly barred from joining the MPBL.

    In cases involving big-name stars, a player's tenure with a team that holds his rights isn't just a long-term commitment, it's more like reclusion perpetua.

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    Japeth Aguilar Ginebra vs NLEXJapeth Aguilar's contract with Ginebra is expiring this month.

    A LIFE SENTENCE

    Will Japeth suffer the same fate, kept in Ginebra while he is strong, only to be traded when he becomes old and weak, ala Arwind Santos and Alex Cabagnot?

    No.

    Because there is a legal remedy.

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    A buy-out.

    A legal scholar and celebrity lawyer, who requested the shelter of anonymity, offered me this important nugget.

    "There is no provision in PBA contracts that allow it to explicitly be bought out. There's also nothing that explicitly prohibits it. But under the law it can be done if the teams and players want to do it. It's simply a renegotiation of an existing contract to release a player for a fee. So it's allowed under the law."

    There you go, take the money and run, Japeth.

    Unless Ginebra wants to blatantly break the salary cap rules that limit max contracts at P450 thousand a month, the Gin Kings can't possibly match Japan's offer.

    The only way to sweeten the pot somehow is to give Japeth a business on the side, a perk that is reportedly given to favored players under the San Miguel umbrella.

    But what if Japeth wants to go, explore another culture, and flourish against international competition?

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      THEY SHOULD SET THIS MAN FREE, IF HE SO DESIRES

      It's high time for the PBA to buy into the idea of contract buy-outs. It's done in all other leagues around the world. Heck, even Kai Sotto has such a clause in the NBL.

      The PBA is stuck in the past, it's onward progress held back by muck and mud obsolete rules.

      And we still wonder why the Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese leagues have long passed us by.

      Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph

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      PHOTO: Marlo Cueto
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