admincertificates for players when they move to foreign teams.
The world football governing body said the new electronic Transfer Matching System was now a mandatory requirement for all member associations in a bid to curb incidents of money laundering and third-party ownership of players.
Fifa said although the rise in player movements needed to be conducted in a transparent manner, the associations should not charge clubs for the international clearance of players through the new system.
Mark Goddard, general manager of the Fifa Transfer Matching System, yesterday told general secretaries and chief executives from Eastern and Southern African countries that the world body had now made it a legal requirement for associations to have a TMS manager in their offices.
Goddard, who flew in from Zurich, Switzerland on Monday afternoon, took the CEOs and the general secretaries from 15 countries – who are gathered in Victoria Falls for a high level seminar – through the functions of the new system and its benefits to the game.
The Fifa official also revealed that the profile of African players had grown rapidly since the end of the 2010 World Cup staged in South Africa.
Goddard said US$31 million worth of transfers of African players had been witnessed since the end of the World Cup.
“African footballers are gaining global profiles. Since the 2010 World Cup US$31 million was spent on players from Caf associations.
“Among the countries represented (15) here, there has been $7, 8 million worth of transfers since last year with 191 players from the region being transfered,” Goddard said.
The Fifa expert also told the participants that it was imperative that their respective associations educated their clubs on how to claim development and solidarity fees whenever international transfer of players below the age of 23 were effected.
“If a club does not to claim the development fees within two years the association can claim that money from the buying club.
“But it is important that you have a TMS manager in your offices, the TMS manager influences how smoothly your association’s transfers are run. With effect from October 2010 TMS became a legal requirement in the Fifa statutes and the regulations are in force. TMS has not changed the rules of transfer but just the way to go about it and is designed to deal with the vulnerability of clubs to money laundering and ensuring integrity and transparency in the market,” Goddard said.
Goddard said the TMS was in line with new trends, arguing that the old system of faxes was open to abuse.
“Until now, transfers have been handled on paper, the way it was 100 years ago. It was impossible to keep track of what was going on yet every single transfer needs to be registered for the purposes of tracking.
“We’ve had imaginary transfers of players who didn’t exist, players who have been made up, all this has been basically going on. It was pretty much standard business practice.”
To complete a transfer, both the buying and selling clubs must enter a number of details into the web-based system, including the transfer fee, the player’s salary, the agent or lawyer involved and the length of the contract.
The money must be transferred from and to a bank account.
“It’s one of the most thorough projects Fifa has ever had. It changes the transfer market completely. It is probably the only programme where Fifa deals directly with the clubs but it is critical for the sake of governance and what Fifa aims to achieve,” said Goddard.
“It does not materially change the regulations but . . . it is an effective way of making sure rules are being enforced. It is clearly in the regulations that no third parties can be involved in the ownership of football players.
Everything which has existed until now will disappear.”
One of the biggest changes will be to prevent third parties – such as companies, agents or pension funds – from owning players, a practice especially common in South America.
Third-party ownership came to prominence in England when West Ham United bought Argentina forward Carlos Tevez, who had previously been playing at Corinthians.
West Ham were fined 5.5 million pounds in April 2007 when the Premier League ruled they had broken the rules after it emerged that Tevez’s transfer rights were partly owned by a private company.
However, the club escaped a points’ deduction penalty and Tevez scored the winning goal as they beat Manchester United 1-0 on the final day of the season to escape relegation.
Goddard said Fifa did not allow players to be transferred via companies. “It is not possible to enter a transfer between a club and a company, for example.”
Another rule is that football academies – which have sprouted in Africa, often run by European clubs or companies – will have to field teams in local amateur or professional competitions before they can sell players.
Fifa believe the new system will also end disputes over whether clubs have been paid or not for a player and over whether a deal was completed before transfer window deadlines.
“Clubs will not be able to argue if the evidence is all there in the system,” Goddard said.
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