League tackles Monti over transfer fees

By Peter Chapman

Date: 27/05/04

COMPETITION Commissioner Mario Monti's team has claimed that the operation of a new system for player transfer fees is a resounding success - but the regime has been panned by the EU's largest football league for widening the gulf between the game's rich and poor.

The system was ushered in three years ago after intense negotiations between the European Commission and football authorities, including FIFA, the Swiss-based body that governs world football.

The Commission was concerned that the old system was anti-competitive because it tied players up in long contracts, making it hard to move to other clubs - particularly if their existing team demanded a fat transfer fee to release them.

Under the new system, contracts are restricted to a maximum of five years for senior players - who are free to end their contracts at the end of a season, after serving at least three years.

Twice-yearly transfer windows were also set up to limit the number of player movements during a season, as a way to prevent a transfer frenzy - which FIFA feared would undermine the continuity of competitions if clubs could buy star players on the eve of big matches.

The transfer windows are open at the end of the soccer season and, for one month only, in January.

Monti's spokeswoman Amelia Torres told European Voice: "We have been monitoring the evolution of the new transfer system and, at the end of 2003, FIFA informed the Commission that a review was ongoing.

"But we have no reason to believe that the system is not working well from a competition law perspective.

"According to our monitoring, at the end of last year the dispute settlement system, for example, appeared to be working: the number of disputes was running at two cases a day, and the vast majority, 80-90%, of the dispute settlements were in favour of the players."

However John Nagle, director of communications at the 72- club English Football League - the competition below the top-flight Premier League - says the system has been a massive financial blow to small clubs that rely on transfer fee income from the elite to survive.

Although the Commission's ruling targeted international players, FIFA has told national authorities that they should apply the same system for all transfers.

"It has been catastrophic," Nagle told this newspaper.

In the first full year of the regime in 2002-03, transfer income for the Football League fell by 46%.

The main problem, Nagle said, is the twice-yearly transfer windows. These mean clubs are often faced with a "take it or leave it" offer from buying Premier League clubs on the last day of the window.

Hard-up clubs are effectively forced to accept relatively small fees, knowing that they will not get a chance to sell their prized assets for another six months.

Clubs are often faced with a starker choice for players coming towards the end of their contracts - either sell for a fraction of the "true value" or hang on to them and receive nothing at the end of the season.

"We just do not see why there isn't an open market so that teams can trade their assets as they see fit," he added.

The transfer windows create periods where the "trickle down" is prevented - and cash-rich clubs can push them against the wall. "A player can have a value on a Monday or Tuesday, but no value at all on a Friday because there will be no transfer fee at all in six months."

Nagle said the Football League allowed trade between its own clubs during the season.

But he said the effect of restriction on sales to the Premier League had trickled down to the smallest clubs, affecting their traditional role of nurturing the stars of tomorrow.

That is because the mid-ranking Football League clubs that would have sold their players to Premier League giants don't have as much money to spend on cheaper players from even lower down the leagues.

The blow to football's poorer teams contrasts with the Commission's stated aim when it warned FIFA and its European counterpart UEFA over the transfer system back in 1996.

Former commissioners for competition and culture, Karel van Miert and Marcelino Oreja, told the governing bodies it was willing to try and broker a deal that would "guarantee solidarity between clubs, both large and small".

A new system for football transfers, introduced in 2001, has been hailed by Competition Commissioner Mario Monti as a success, but football authorities, including FIFA, have strongly criticised the regime.

• Primary Source

ESO: In Focus: After Bosman: Reform of the football transfer system, March 2001 http://www.europeansources.info/record/after-bosman-reform-of-the-football-transfer-system-march-2001/

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