By Mark Baber
February 8 – A European Commission study on the economic and legal aspects of player transfers says the transfer system has to change to bring it into line with the original rationale for sport to be alowed to differ from normal employment practices.
The report strongly supports the Transfer Matching System from FIFA and Financial Fair Play from UEFA and formulates proposals including increased redistribution to less wealthy clubs though, for instance, a fair play levy; better publicity regarding player movements; a limit of 25 players per club; stricter regulation of loans and addressing third party ownership.
The report also recommends that transfer fees should be limited, youth development supported, governance improved through transparency and better cooperation with public authorities established.
The just-issued Study on the economic and legal aspects of transfers of players http://www.keanet.eu/docs/full_study_transferofplayers.pdf by research firm KEA-CDES provides an insight into the football transfer system from a European legislative and economic point of view.
This study comes 17 years after the Bosman ruling which transformed transfer practices in professional sport and 11 years after the informal agreement between FIFA, UEFA and the European Commission which, to a large extent, established the new FIFA rules on transfers.
The report outlines the development of transfer rules and judgements, including the informal agreement between the European Commission and the international football bodies in 2001, and their basis in redistribution of resources amongst clubs to promote fair and balanced competition and youth development.
The study finds that the total amount of transfers in football for 2010/11 was about €3bn in the EU with significant elements of concentration: the “big-5” European leagues in England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain represented more than 55% of this amount.
It also finds that between 1995 and 2011, the number of transfers in the EU has been multiplied by 3.2 and the total value of transfer fees by 7.4.
In addition, according to the study, professional football has recently been confronted with a financial crisis despite strong income growth.
The turnover of the first division championships of the 53 UEFA member countries increased from €9 billion in 2006 to €12.7 billion in 2010 whilst overall net losses increased steadily over the period 2006-2010 to reach €1.64 billion in 2010. 56% of the clubs concerned are reporting net losses for the year 2010.
The study stresses the need to address competitive imbalance claiming that the very essence of sports activities is to reward sporting accomplishment independently of financial means.
However, the current transfer rules fail to prevent competitive imbalance as there is a strong link between transfer expenditures and sporting results in particular since 2001.
In addition, solidarity compensations directly linked to transfers (i.e. training compensation and solidarity mechanism), only account for 1.84% of the total agreed transfer fees within Europe.
The report highlights that the Champions League is skewed towards supporting the most successful clubs, which happen to be the wealthiest in their respective leagues whilst solidarity payments to non-participating clubs in the UCL competition represent less than 6% of the total money received by the 32 clubs participating in the Champions League.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1738777572labto1738777572ofdlr1738777572owedi1738777572sni@o1738777572fni1738777572