The Premier League is not implementing the new FIFA rules on player agents, but UEFA’s rules on writing off player registration costs are now being implemented
Football is big business, but there are Financial Fair Play rules in place to ensure balance. Some people then look for ways and means to get around this. In England, for example, the trick was to sign players to long-term contracts – a high-risk financial ploy that could become a real burden for clubs in the long term.
The trick: transfer income was always booked in the current financial year, while transfer expenses could be spread over the duration of the contract. An example: If you buy a player for 50 million euros and tie him down for five years, you only have ten million euros each on the expenditure side for five years – while the selling club immediately makes a plus of 50 million euros.
In this way, various clubs, most notably Chelsea FC, were able to undermine the financial fair play rules. The problem is that the clubs are taking a huge financial risk, especially in the long term, as players with such long contracts have to be guaranteed a salary for a correspondingly long period of time
English exception will be abolished
In Germany, this would not be possible, as according to the DFL licensing regulations, “the maximum term of a contract may not exceed five years”. There was no such restriction in England until now. There, an addition from the FIFA regulations applied, according to which “the maximum duration of a contract” may only be five years, but “contracts with a different duration” are also permitted if this is “compatible with national laws”.
Now, however, the Premier League is putting a stop to these machinations. As the league announced in a letter on Tuesday, the “shareholders of the Premier League have agreed to amend the rules on the amortization of player registration costs to bring them into line with UEFA regulations. In future, a maximum term of five years will apply to all new or renewed player contracts.”
In addition, the Premier League board has been authorized to impose a transfer ban. This would apply in cases where a club has a transfer debt to another Premier League or EFL club – in such cases, it would be possible to prohibit the club concerned from registering further players until the outstanding payment has been made.
Furthermore, the board has been given the power to offset any debts owed by a club against its claims to the league’s central funds.