By David Owen
March 23 – Europe is virtually monopolising payments to clubs under FIFA’s Club Protection Programme (CPP). The scheme, which compensates clubs when their players are injured on international duty, made €39.4 million of payments in its first two years and four months of operation. Of this, no less than €38.6 million – 98% – went to clubs in the UEFA region.
Details in FIFA’s newly-published financial report reveal that clubs in England received one-third of the money – €13.2 million – with Spain (€7.9 million), Italy (€4.9 million) and Germany (€4.3 million) the next biggest recipients.
Players from world champions Germany were especially injury-prone, accounting for 11 CPP cases, compensated by payments totalling €4.2 million, well ahead of Italy, which had seven cases, England and Switzerland, each with five, and Belgium, Chile, South Korea, the Netherlands and Uruguay which all had four.
In all, 27 of the 129 cases were players with English clubs, 17 German, 16 Italian and 14 Spanish.
No details of the players involved were given, but these Spanish cases would presumably have included the high-profile injury suffered by the Brazil and Barcelona star Neymar in the World Cup quarter-final against Colombia.
The overall cost to FIFA of this inaugural CPP programme looks to have been $88.5 million, spread over three financial years.
Under CPP, the temporary total disablement of a player hurt in an international match between 1 September 2012 and 31 December 2014 could trigger payments capped at €7.5 million per claim. The amount insured was the player’s annual fixed salary, with a maximum daily amount of €20,548 for a maximum period of 365 days.
These terms will remain unchanged for a renewed scheme covering the 2015-18 period. This time, however, women’s international ‘A’ matches, including this year’s women’s World Cup in Canada, are covered.
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