Why FIFA is committed to reforming the transfer system

For me, the transfer system is a little bit of a hobby.

It started when I began working for UEFA on 1 August 2000, as a young lawyer. Since everyone was on holiday in the summer and I’d just started work, my desk was empty, so the then-CEO of UEFA put on my table the statement of objection of the European Commission and he asked me: 'since you are a lawyer, have a look at this' and there the whole transfer saga started.

A year later, in 2001, with an exchange of letters between FIFA and the European Commissioner for Competition, Mario Monti, an agreement was reached and then signed by the presidents of FIFA, UEFA and the European Commission – maybe we can now also share with you the secret of what was signed in that ceremony: a football!?

This collaboration, between the European Commission and FIFA, is one of which we are still very, very proud.?Of course, though, the transfer system goes back many years before 2001. In fact, the first payment for the transfer of a player happened in 1893, when a player named Jack Southworth was transferred from Blackburn to Everton for ￡400. This triggered the Football Association in England to issue the first transfer regulations, to basically say that a player needs the permission of his club to move to another club, and linking it with the possibility of a payment as well.?

The current regulations for the status and transfer of players are still very much a reflection of this signature – on a football! – and of what was agreed by the European Commission and FIFA. The commissioner at the time said, and I'm quoting it because I think it's important, that "the new rules find a balance between the players' fundamental rights to free movement and the stability of contracts, together with the legitimate objective of integrity of sport and the stability of championship".?

These are words that, indeed, were right in the 2001 agreement because the objectives and the goals that we wanted to achieve – and, when I say 'we', I'm really speaking about the sports movement and the authorities like the European Commission – was to encourage the trading of players; to protect the contractural stability; to protect minors; and to foster solidarity in sport by protecting globally the integrity of its competition.

These are goals that are still valid today, of course, but football has changed since the year 2000. Football has grown. I'd like to mention three figures, which strike me every time I look at them, concerning the transfer system in 2019 – the last pre-COVID year, where the transfer of players and the transfer system was growing, and it has grown immensely. In 2019, €7billion was spent on transfer fees. Of that, €700million has gone to commissions of agents and only €70million has gone to trading and solidarity compensation. It's not right, and something needs to change in this respect – and we are changing it.

What happened more and more following the agreement of 2001 is that the transfer market was – and is still – driven by more by speculation than solidarity. What started as contract stability protection transformed itself into using that argument – of contract stability – in order to create instability and speculation for transfers to happen.

When I was elected as the President of FIFA in 2016, I immediately committed to the reform of the transfer system. I think that, after 15 or 20 years, you have to look into what you can be doing better and, one year later, in 2017, we established a taskforce of all the stakeholders – players, clubs, leagues, associations, confederations and the leadership of FIFA.?

While obtaining quite a lot of criticisms from everyone – which is sometimes not such a bad sign when it's coming from right and left, because maybe it means you are proposing the right measures – we proposed an 11-point plan, following which we introduced three reform packages.

Now, in 2021, we are going through the third of those reform packages. It is a little bit of the?pièce de resistance?but I'm confident we will reach a good agreement and decision to move forwards. The topics are: the transfer of minors; squad size limits; transfer windows; and the big question of transfer fees and whether we should have a mathematical calculation on how much value a contract of a player has, or whether it should be left to the discretion of clubs, agents and intermediaries.?

I believe we should seriously look into making all of these rules a step more transparent than they are now. We will fight for that and I am sure we will achieve a positive result.?

All of these reforms started with the agreement of 2001 and they have the same spirit because the goals and the objectives are always the same: to protect integrity, solidarity, minors, the development of players and competitions. All of these rules contribute to making football truly global; to making it better; and to have more players, clubs and national teams able to compete at the highest level.??

This week we presented a commentary that we've been waiting 20 years for, since the agreement with the European Commission. This commentary is a signal of how we, in the 'new' FIFA, want to work. We want to work in a transparent way, in a professional way. We want to be a service-oriented organisation and one that is, indeed, at the service of football.?