You're right about one thing, normal jobs aren't the same as careers in football. Footballers have a fairly short window to achieve their goals and they need to strike while the iron is hot. It is a ridiculously competitive industry and maybe by the time a players contract is up, no team that can offer potential titles and triple the wages is looking for that kind of player. Right now Arsenal are interested in Caicedo, there's absolutely a chance that if he doesn't go to Arsenal, they get someone else in and then he's missed his chance, same with Chelsea.

There are plenty of players who at one point in time were sought after, but then weren't really chased again despite remaining good players because those clubs sign someone else instead. Right now clubs do want to sign Caicedo, but, these clubs aren't going to wait around for his contract to end, so if I'm him, I'm trying to secure my move immediately. It's very unlikely that he won't be sought after in the future, but, it's still possible so why take the risk.

As for not turning up to training, that I absolutely disagree with, but the notion that "well he signed a contract" means he has to be prepared to stay at Brighton until it's over is ridiculous, because, as you said, normal jobs aren't the same as careers in football. We literally have transfer windows where players with contracts move all the fucking time. Contracts themselves are literally as tools used to inflate player values because the club knows there is a possibility of losing that player and they want to secure a fee.

Clubs know their players won't necessarily honour their contracts and players know that they don't have to necessarily do so either, so I think it's fair to say that no, you can't look at a players contract and genuinely say "well he signed it so he has to commit for that exact amount of time" lol. You said normal jobs aren't the same and then used an example of you signing a contract and being prepared to honour it, so you're sort of arguing against your own initial point no?