The various European football leagues generally follow FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (“RSTP”) to control the player transfer system through rules that balance player and team interests.
The current version of the RSTP (referred to by FIFA as simply the “Regulations”) is dated as of December, 2017.
FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players
FIFA also made certain amendments to these regulations, which took effect on June 1, 2018.
Summary of the Amendments
- Art. 14 of the Regulations has been amended to include a new paragraph concerning abusive situations where the stance of a party (either a player or a club) is intended to force the counterparty to terminate or change the terms of the contract.
- A new Art. 14bis of the Regulations has been introduced in order to address the specific circumstance of terminating a contract due to overdue salaries.
- Art. 18 now also contains a provision prohibiting so-called contractual “grace periods” for the payment of due payables towards players, unless explicitly allowed under a collective bargaining agreement. (NOTE: the prohibition does not affect those contracts which were concluded prior to the entry into force of the provision in question.)
- Art. 17 of the Regulations has been changed with regard to the calculation of compensation for breach of contract without just cause. – Art. 17 par. 1 of the Regulations now further specifies the method of calculation of the compensation due to a player, with a distinction being made between players who remained unemployed following the breach of the contract without just cause and those having found new employment.
- Finally, with the aim of ensuring that monetary decisions are respected, a new Art. 24bis of the Regulations has been introduced. This provision grants FIFA’s decision-making bodies, i.e. the Players’ Status Committee, the Dispute Resolution Chamber, the single judge or the DRC judge, as the case may be, powers to impose sanctions on players and clubs should a monetary decision not be complied with. Such possible sanctions will be part of the decision as to the substance of the dispute and consist of, for clubs, a ban from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, and for players, a restriction on playing in official matches.
