By David Owen
October 3 – Compensation terms payable under FIFA’s Club Protection Programme (CPP) are to remain unchanged over the next four years.
FIFA’s ruling Executive Committee last week approved the renewal of the scheme, introduced in 2012, for a further four years, covering the 2015-18 period. But, while estimating the overall cost at €100 million, it gave no immediate indication as to whether compensation terms for clubs whose players are injured on international duty would differ from those currently applicable.
World football’s governing body has now confirmed to INSIDEworldfootball that basic benefits will remain unchanged. This means that payments triggered by the temporary total disablement of a player hurt in an international match will be capped at €7.5 million per claim all the way until 2018.
The amount insured is the player’s annual fixed salary, with the maximum daily amount of €20,548 for a maximum period of 365 days, similarly enshrined now, or so it appears, until the end of the 2015-18 football cycle.
As FIFA announced last week, women’s international ‘A’ matches, including presumably the 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada, will also be covered under the new scheme. FIFA, however, is unable to specify at present what level of benefits will apply to injured women players.
FIFA also disclosed that negotiations regarding the insurance company were ongoing. The insurance company for the present scheme is understood to be HDI-Gerling.
FIFA has estimated the overall cost of this initial scheme, effective for less than two-and-a-half years, as opposed to the four years of the full international football cycle, at $100 million. The actual cost to FIFA in 2012 and 2013 was $54.4 million.
Analysis of the first 80 CPP cases, contained in FIFA’s 2013 financial report, showed that no less than 98% of the money paid out to that point had gone to clubs in Europe, where the vast majority of the best-paid players in the world play their club football.
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