06 January 2025 GMT: 04:40

La Liga slams total ban on TPO but proposes compromise

Javier Tebas

By David Owen in Monaco
October 9 – Battle-lines over the issue of third-party ownership (TPO) are being drawn, with Spain’s La Liga coming out strongly against FIFA’s decision to ban the practice.

“We don’t like FIFA’s idea at all,” Javier Tebas, La Liga President, told INSIDEworldfootball, in an interview conducted at the Sportel Monaco Convention.

“We are against a total ban.”

Tebas disclosed that he had already spoken to FIFA on the subject, and said that La Liga had drafted a proposal raising several issues. He made clear that La Liga could agree to certain restrictions, including the following:

● A limit such that TPO agreements could not cover a majority of players at a given club;

● A cap restricting to 50% the proportion of a given player’s economic rights that could be covered by a TPO agreement;

● A cap on the profits that can be made under deals ascribing third-party investors the right to a certain amount of TV income when they would otherwise make a loss on a particular player.

Asked whether La Liga was canvassing support for its stance in other countries, Tebas acknowledged it was “maintaining contacts”.

His comments come less than two weeks after FIFA agreed to set up a working group, headed by former English FA chairman Geoff Thompson, to draft legal rules that would prohibit outside investors from profiting from transfers.

“We took a firm decision that TPO should be banned, but it cannot be banned immediately – there will be a transitional period,” FIFA President Joseph Blatter said at the time.

Jérôme Valcke, the governing body’s secretary general, said details would be agreed by FIFA’s executive committee in December or, at the latest, March, but cautioned that a full ban could only take effect in three or four years’ time, since clubs would need a period to buy out some investors and for affected contracts to expire.

It has become commonplace in recent times for the economic rights of players to be acquired by private individuals and funds investing for profit. In some countries, however, the practice is already banned. Critics argue that TPO drains money from the sport and can lead to players being transferred simply to generate profit for the rights owners.

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