By Andrew Warshaw
December 22 – FIFA’s ban on third-party ownership will start on May 1 next year, ending a practice that has gone on for years despite prompting widespread international anxiety over the way hundreds of transfers are conducted.
Three months ago FIFA announced it would be getting tough on TPO and debated the issue at last week’s executive committee in Marrakesh. The ban, which will be subject to a transition phase, generated little publicity because of the furore over Michael Garcia’s World Cup report but was a significant move in the effort to regulate the global transfer market.
“Existing agreements shall continue to be in place until their contractual expiry,” FIFA clarified in a statement, adding that any new agreements signed before May 1 will be valid for a maximum of one year only.
The practise of economic rights of players being shared amongst private investors (and now often investment funds) has been a common practice in South America and recently spread to Europe amid growing concern over how the money changes hands and how much actual transfer fees are.
With a limit of a one-year investment allowed in future, football’s authorities have now struck a serious blow against TPO. UEFA said recently that if FIFA didn’t act it would enforce a unilateral ban in its own competitions.
UEFA boss Michel Platini has savaged TPO arguing that it “threatens the integrity of our competitions, damages football’s image, poses a long-term threat to clubs’ finances and even raises questions about human dignity.”
But implementing the ban was not plain sailing. Many clubs and leagues argue that it provides vital revenue that smaller clubs need in order to compete. Last season, Atletico Madrid broke the Barcelona-Real Madrid stranglehold on La Liga but only after turning to investors to help bring players in.
In October, the head of the Spanish League, Javier Tebas, explained how his country relied on TPO as an integral part of the way the clubs did business and denounced FIFA’s plans to ban it even though critics say it drives money out of the game.
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