FIFA achieves tougher rules for football agents in CAS

The International Football Federation (FIFA) has won a very important legal process. In the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), she defended a new regulation that tightens the rules for the activities of football agents and, in particular, limits their income.

The International Football Federation has published statement, in which she “welcomed” the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne in her favor on an issue extremely important for the structure, as its president Gianni Infantino repeatedly stated. This is a question related to the implementation of the new rules for the activities of football agents. Partially, they came into force in January, and in full should come into effect from October 1 this year.

We are talking about a fairly noticeable reform in a fairly large market. According to FIFA, agents worldwide received $622.8 million in commissions in 2022, 96.2% of which came from deals involving European clubs.

Previously, the rules did not regulate the amount of agency commissions. Now there are restrictions.

If the annual salary of a football player does not exceed $200,000, then the annual agency fee cannot exceed 5% of this amount. If the player’s income is above $200,000, then the commission is reduced to 3%.

The new regulation also limits the practice of double or even triple representation (cases where one agent represented both contracting clubs and the player himself). An exception is made only for the team that buys a football player. In this case, one agent can represent both the buying club and the player. The agency fee in such a situation cannot exceed 10% of the player’s income, if he does not exceed $200,000 per year, and 6% – with an income of more than $200,000. And the agents representing the selling club are in the most advantageous position. They can receive up to 10% of a player’s transfer fee.

No less curious point of the reform is the requirement to ensure the transparency of transactions. So, settlements must go through the FIFA clearing house. Her work is designed to make the transfer market more transparent, as well as to ensure that clubs are guaranteed to receive payments due to them for the education of football players (usually small clubs act as “educators”). According to the rules, they should receive 5% when transferring a football player (all teams for which he played from 12 to 23 years old receive money, and their shares depend on the period that the player spent with them).

The reform immediately caused a wave of indignation in the agency community.

Agents pointed out that the restrictions imposed would force many of them out of business, which risked being effectively monopolized by top players like Mino Raiola or Jorge Mendes.

And some agency associations appealed to various authorities, trying to prove that the new FIFA regulatory framework does not comply with the principles of fair competition. The main one was filed with the highest arbitration court in sports by the Professional Football Agents Association (PROFAA), based in Zurich.

However, CAS sided with the defendant and “totally” rejected all of the plaintiff’s arguments. In his verdict, the FIFA reforms are characterized as “absolutely legitimate” and “balanced”.

In the meantime, it served as an occasion for the federation to give it an even more global dimension. In a statement, FIFA said that the CAS decision “asserts its supremacy” in regulating not only the agency market, but also the “systematically malfunctioning” transfer system in general, signaling that it intends to correct other elements of it as well.

Alexey Dospekhov