By David Owen
March 26 – European clubs have hoovered up nearly all the €27 million in compensation money paid out over the first 18 months of FIFA’s Club Protection Programme (CPP).
The new player insurance scheme is designed to compensate clubs when their players are injured on international duty.
Under the scheme, the temporary total disablement of a player hurt in an international match between 1 September 2012 and 31 December 2014 can trigger payments capped at €7.5 million per claim. The amount insured is the player’s annual fixed salary, with a maximum daily amount of €20,548 for a maximum period of 365 days.
Clearly, the best-paid players are likely to trigger the highest compensation payments, and analysis of the first 80 cases, contained in FIFA’s 2013 financial report, shows that no less than 98% of the money paid out to date has gone to clubs in Europe, where nearly all the best players in the world play their club football.
Of the first €27 million in compensation, no less than €26.4 million has gone to European clubs, with €400,000 going to clubs in North and Central America, and €100,000 each to those in Africa and Asia.
Nothing at all has so far been paid to clubs from Oceania or South America.
England alone was the destination of €10.4 million, or 38.5%, of the money, followed by Spain (€7.8 million) and Germany (€3.3 million).
Players from Italy, South Korea and Uruguay have so far proved the most injury-prone, accounting for four cases each.
English clubs have been the injured player’s employer in 17 of the 80 cases to date.
The cost of CPP to FIFA in 2013, as distinct from the amounts paid to the clubs of injured international players, was put at $36.1 million, compared with $18.4 million in 2012, when it was only operating for part of the year.
The programme was approved at the 2012 FIFA Congress in Budapest.
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