By Mark Baber
April 29 – Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, second and third in the Spanish League and last year’s Champions League finalists, are due to be punished by FIFA for breaches of the FIFA regulations on transfers of minors which were designed to prevent child trafficking, according to reports in the Spanish media.
The two Madrid clubs apparently broke the same rules as Barcelona who, as Insideworldfootball revealed in February 2013, were bringing children from around the globe to their training facility in Spain, often without their parents and in defiance of FIFA regulations.
In April 2014 Barcelona finally received a transfer ban at both national and international level for two complete and consecutive transfer periods. The club launched an appeal which was finally rejected by the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS), but not before the club had time to purchase players to mitigate the effects of the ban.
Tuesday’s revelations by radio Cadena SER suggest the two Madrid clubs will face the same sanction as Barcelona, with the two clubs and the Spanish Football Federation (which was also sanctioned in the Barcelona case) reportedly already having been informed of their fate.
If the sanctions become official, the Madrid clubs will undoubtedly launch appeals in order to buy time to purchase players. In doing this they may earn a reprimand for breaking Financial Fair Play regulations, but they should easily pass the tests in the subsequent seasons when the transfer ban goes into effect.
FIFA have a long-standing policy to strictly control the transfer of minors to prevent child trafficking, which the Spanish clubs ignored, presumably hoping no one would pay attention, that FIFA would not enforce the regulations or that the possible benefits would outweigh the likely sanctions.
In February 2007, FIFPro filed a case against the Danish Football Association (DBU) and Danish club FC Midtjylland for breaching FIFA regulations on import of underage players. The players, who were all aged 16-17, were given licenses as amateur players by DBU in direct conflict with article 19 of FIFA’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP). Both FC Midtjylland and DBU were issued with strong warnings by FIFA in January 2008 for the infringement of article 19 of the RSTP.
At the same time it was emphasised that it would lead to serious consequences, should the club continue its import of underage players. FC Midtjylland appealed the case to the CAS who upheld FIFA’s verdict.
The judgement was hailed by Mads Oland of FIFPro who said: “FIFA’s regulations are intended to protect against trafficking of underage players from Third World countries and must be observed by all clubs – including FC Midtjylland. The rule is necessary and without it we can end up in an unpleasant situation where European clubs compete for bringing in a large number of hopeful underage players. After the preliminary sorting, most players will be sent back home with the sense of failure. Or even worse they will end up being sent from club to club in Europe. Ultimately, only very few end up making it.”
The regulations were further strengthened in October 2009 and FIFA’s Article 19 on the Protection of Minors is crystal clear that international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18.
The only exceptions to this rule are strictly limited to situations where the player’s parents move to the country for reasons not linked to football, where the player is 16 to 18 and the transfer takes place within the EU or EEA (and then only under strict conditions on living standards and education) or if the player’s usual domicile is within 100km of the club.
The introduction of FIFA’s Transfer Matching System, which ensures the registration of all player transfers, will likely prevent repetitions of the behaviour of the top Spanish clubs, although campaigners will need to be vigilant about training camps being set up outside Europe where children are similarly separated from their families and cultures and subjected to a rigorous training regime in the faint hope of being able to follow in the footsteps of the Barcelona stars of today.
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