diff --git a/pyfpdb/Database.py b/pyfpdb/Database.py
index 7194b230..2d91ff4c 100644
--- a/pyfpdb/Database.py
+++ b/pyfpdb/Database.py
@@ -38,7 +38,6 @@ from decimal import Decimal
 import string
 import re
 import Queue
-import codecs
 
 #    pyGTK modules
 
@@ -52,7 +51,6 @@ import Charset
 from Exceptions import *
 
 log = Configuration.get_logger("logging.conf")
-encoder = codecs.lookup('utf-8')
 
 class Database:
 
@@ -1560,7 +1558,7 @@ class Database:
 
     def insertPlayer(self, name, site_id):
         result = None
-        (_name, _len) = encoder.encode(unicode(name))
+        _name = Charset.to_utf8(name)
         c = self.get_cursor()
         q = "SELECT name, id FROM Players WHERE siteid=%s and name=%s"
         q = q.replace('%s', self.sql.query['placeholder'])