Player Contracts – What protection do they offer?

so welcome to this afternoon's session in which we'll be looking at player contracts we won't only be looking at player contracts we were doing in conjunction we were taking quite a wide interpretation and looking at the broader sort rancifer system and the various parties have got interest within that system so on the panel we have a distinguished lineup of speakers who have represent various stakeholders within the football profession we have Alexandra Gomez from a fief pro who is their legal counsel everyone knows whose fief Pro are I presume the the player Association for professional for blaze and players around the world so her left we have Daniel crevo whom many of you will be familiar with from previous subjects events all over the world but he's poking at Daniel was a sports lawyer he represents not only clubs in Brazil but also players on the international level and to his left we have Ian Lynam who's the co head of sports at Charles Russell speechless he is a sports lawyer he works and only on player contracts book so more broadly on commercial and corporate deals within sport and has quite a white practice detective masters as well and his left we have Daniel Lorenz who many of you know who have been soccer excellent local occasions who is the former legal da head of legal story FC Porto and a leading sports lawyer so the title of the session and I know no doubt is going to be debated and is a player contracts do how much do they protect or how much protection do they offer the players so to start off with I thought it would be good if each of you could just give your opinion on how effective on there and I think it may be good to give her both a domestic and international perspective because you'll have your unique opinions how much protection does actually a player contract offer the player and I think I'll start with to get the ball rolling Alexandra yeah good afternoon everyone well I think that actually it's not a sufficient protection that the contracts provide to players for a number of reasons and I think that the numbers show the justification for what I'm saying we have carried out our research in v Pro that it's called the labor market research and in that research we found out that 41 percent of the players were having overdue payments so how can we say that the contracts are protecting the players if almost half of these players are not receiving their their money's on time right on top of this we have a lot of claims of international dimension in the DRC 85% of these claims are from the players and most of them the vast majority I think it's like 95 percent are won by the players so it shows that they are right to launch these claims whereas only 15% are alleged by the clubs and half are fully rejected so I think that that really shows the situation of the the players another issue is the registration for example play the player may terminate his contract with Just Cause even but if it's outside the transfer window in most of the countries he will not be able to register sorry for those I'm going to assume that there's knowledge in the room but on some of the legal points if you're not sure please raise your hand up we've got a question for Albert can you just clarify the just'cause part because we talked about it with a sports or circles but for those some people might be less familiar with that okay well when it's without just goals it could be like this the player just leaves you know he has a contract for a certain period of time and he just leaves when it's with just cause it could be because of non-payment but the jurisprudence has developed this theory that it has to be three months of non-payment sometimes it's but general is three months or there could be other situations like training alone or other stuff but it really has to be very well proven for a player to be able to leave his club without having to pay a very hard and unknown compensation and that leads me to another point that for the players it's really difficult to know or even impossible I would say due to the jurisprudence that has developed to know if he breaches his contract if he says like okay I don't want to play here anymore and I'm living to know how much you will have to pay to the club as compensation whereas for the club it's very clear because it's the rest value of the contract of the player and that is that would be like the maximum because the the new contract of the player the amount is going to be deducted from that so it could lead to nothing so basically you're saying that the contract doesn't often or doesn't at times offer much protection exactly but from that from that the number that you gave which is quite a large number was that particularly geo-specific so was that sort of outside of Europe yeah whether because there are overdue payable rules and maybe in Europe but in Europe the in Europe the same number that I was talking about the forty one percent is thirty two point two so it's quite high anyway so you know coming to your cut then I'll come back to you the second I know you have particular views on have to look at it from very global yeah I think now hear me yeah okay you see it is hard to generalize about that question because I think it is different in in market to market and country to country and across you know a range of issues so on the over to payables I mean certainly your wife is enhanced licensing system has had an impact in in you know the major European countries but also there's nation by nation licensing as well so you know some countries have will go beyond even what what what UEFA requires some countries especially outside Europe will have no licensing system so or would you payables definitely I think differs you know market to market and and that's true on a number of issues so another I suppose key point about specifically on that question do contracts protect players is what happens when a player gets injured and there is a massive you know disparity of treatment as between contracts in different countries you know in I think the Netherlands were for free Pro are located I think the contracts are entirely guaranteed so you signed a four-year contract in the Netherlands you suffer a serious injury the player gets fully paid you know in this country players are you know are well protected 12 months if it's enough field incident 18 months if you're injured while performing your services as a footballer but in France you know a big country where Neymar has just gone for example I was talking to you know Michael Owen from from locked-in insurance and they cover you know players across all these different countries and he was you know brought up this this point about how different it is in these markets you moved to France you suffer career-ending injury and you only get paid for 42 days you know if you're someone like you know Neymar who's looking at such huge numbers that makes a huge difference in country where you can pay for 18 months in the country where you got paid for 42 days and obviously potentially players can go and ensure that but that can be very expensive and particularly if a club maybe is ensuring its interest in a player and probably they'll do that first then it can be incredibly expensive for a player to go and source insurance because the capacity in the market taken off by the club so that's you know an issue I think which again differs very much and it's hard to be speaking in general terms but what that should be to bring American perspective into this but I think no doubt however the courses that I will find out how difficulties dealing with international rules domestic laws so actually have a sort of standardized approach but can you give you a perspective on yeah I think the question is not I think to analyze if the contract protects the player or the club but both situations and until which extent of course we're gonna have always two different sized contending fighting for more rights in one side more obligations on the other side so we're never gonna have peaceful waters in this in this issue but I think that there are some improvement there are concrete they are substantial in regards to the jurisdiction of FIFA for instance under Article 12 B's on the overdue payments there was an improvement because the case are quickly resolved instead of the ordinary procedures before the DRC so this is an improvement no no not only for the players but also for the creditors the clubs that are creditors also so did I think this certain thing and I think that the broader approach on that is that of course at the protection of a player of a club begins with the contract because that's the base for the Darrel ation ships but it's much more than that it's to ask if the system gives this protection and until which level for each party for instance and I know that Alexandre brought here I think that the nuclear party of the fifth proposition against the contractual stability and when we know in that that's that's fair enough that we can openly discuss that would say if the player wants to break the contract because he has his free will and he wants to simply go to find out of the club he doesn't know how much is gonna have to pay that's that's the exactly the discussion of Methuselah and Webster and that's exactly the idea of contractual stability that the player cannot make mathematics to know how much it's going to cost to be hired and simply walk away from his contract but of course that there's a huge discrepancy in the application of the criteria when the club is in bridge and the player and one of these distortions for instance we were discussing there is the fact that the jurisprudence and the Masters presence of FIFA and Kass says that the player has to deduct his new salaries in case of a compensation which for me is a huge mistake not only because it's this there's a huge discrepancy in regards to watch applies in favor of the clothes but also because the player depends on the service but the process be sources that's a situation where plan apply unilateral severance the contract moves to another club yeah if the player what what Alexander was saying is there if the club the player breached the club the contract with the club the club knows already how much is entitled to ask but may I say that I don't think that's exactly accurately why because we know that these huge panel clause is that the clubs insert in the contracts in most of the cases unless the player is a very very valuable player they don't work as a pre estimation off of losses no but they know the rest value that part is like safe for them no I know but if the player if I'm losing a player that simply breach the contract I don't know how much I'm going to get from compensation and the same works for the club that is receiving this player he doesn't know so it's a debt rent in fact this clause is half but they don't have the pre liquidation or damages as we thought so I think there are there are some some difficulties from both sides I think the protection of the system should be discussed in many points but we're never going to have a final agreement between clubs and players so near the end yesterday we were discussing this and so you're saying there's less of an issue with the necessary the contractual solid things well challenge that slowly particular with agents and some of the issues around that I'd love to also I've heard that there's multiple there's often in certain plants of the world there's multiple contracts so you may have late yeah there might be one that's filed with the club and then there's two other side contracts it might be wonder to complies and one that doesn't say commodity regulations I get your perspective on man experience that yes and if you don't mind I also like to comment to the first question well for my experience I've been a lawyer from a club or FC Porto for 16 years and but I'm also doing the job for protecting players in negotiations with clubs so I know I know pretty well both sides and I tend also to agree a little bit with everything that was said but like Danielle pointed out the basis starts with a contract so I think if you get a good lawyer that knows what's what's going on you pretty much protect it but of course it depends where you're gonna sign the contract you know I think in general terms and I understand also the the fears and and and the concerns of chief bro but the player was never so protected as it is today and if you're talking about Europe you're pretty much protected and you have now double licensing systems I mean if you want to compete in the first league and in the second League at least in Portugal in many countries you have to prove that you have no depths now in Portugal you even have to have no debts with your with your workers and the Football Club or company so it's not even the players or the the coach it's even the cohort the workers it has to do it financially play but it helped this financial Fairplay helped a lot the players so then you have also the wafer licensing many clubs you have around I don't know if we have it clubs they're competing the European competitions they all if they have depth they cannot be licensed so you have different levels of course if you are in a country and in a country and with with you you don't have licensing systems it's different there you have to have a good lawyer and you will struggle more but I I think it's comparing to other sports and comparing to other professions you pretty much protect it coming to your question I mean as a lawyer when I when I see a contract and for instance I just saw a contractor two weeks ago a player that I transferred from Portugal to to Poland and in many countries you have this bilingual contracts so you have to be sure that the English language the language you understand will be of authoritative will prevail and if you have a number of contracts like the official Federation or a Football Association contract and then the private conditions contract you just make sure you put a clause that in case of any dispute the contract will prevail the contract that has the the best of the financial conditions so this is very important as many I mean in my head I always had like okay let's look sometimes you have four pages the other times you have 25 pages of contract so but try always to look it's like the vital points the eyes the mouth the heart it's the same as the contract so you go to the text questions you go to the dispute resolution termination clauses you go to then the the the the language so you make sure that you're safe dispute resolution is very very important but then you also have little little sub sub vital points as for instance make sure that the player is signing for the first team not the second not the third if they want to put them aside so try to to follow this this priority list it's a checklist basically it should that be so in the UK we go the player I was good could be we've got a standard contract say that your standard contract should we see that on a global stage but there's these minimum clauses in which that should be a doctor globally in the sense that you know they're that important if they are so say not everyone's privy to having such great lawyers if he's that these are the key points should it not be negotiated and be as like that he's no he's not negotiable than the rest we can discuss would you agree that yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah I mean let me i remember when when was it it was at 13 years ago that marine who came from Porter to Chelsea I remember I helped him out in the non official basis in the contract and his employment contract and there was this what we were talking about in the case he was being dismissed from the team if he would receive all the remuneration that was established in the contract or if there was to be a mitigation with the new contract or a gardening leave so which is very very typical here yeah and this was not me being brilliant as a lawyer I mean I knew that they were paying a lot to have him so I could basically say what I want and I said this is not negotiable if you take him you have to pay his full contract the next day but normally you can't say these things because they they won't take you so you got it as well see the temperature of the waters and try to have the common sense help you legal skills are always balanced with common sense so it depends very much how strong is your negotiation position also when I was signing Hawke in China I was there's a huge contract the Chinese will play we're paying this was one year ago and I was basically camp coming in basically saying okay I'll leave them any clause they want I will put put in but of course there are closes I cannot allow by any chance but I didn't require any to Garrett have you got an example some of those close yes I mean people ask me now when they bring a player to China do you ask for guarantees because they're afraid that at the second year if the player does not perform that they will not pay him so I said no no guarantees where you can't negotiate is for instance it's a four-year term contract ask that the last year be divided and put the money in the three first something like that okay but it's very difficult for companies to present guarantees so no no bank guarantees but for instance they had a clause there which is typically for their culture not for us is I mean imagine they're paying millions and millions per year to a player and then they put a clause in saying that if you're sick for more than eight days we can terminate the contract unilaterally and you're gone that is totally unacceptable so that took me one week to negotiate to take their clothes out so it was hard but you can never never accept a clause like that I mean when you most need the support of your employer and if you get a fever you get sag that's that's non-negotiable and then you can of course negotiate and help to increase the insurance and so on and so on but although the club or all of the clauses I was basically willing to okay put whatever you want I just want the dispute to be in the Cass according to the due process of law I want disciplinary proceedings to be notified to be able to respond and to have an appeal right I mean these basic things which in the country for political and cultural reasons you don't have you shift him to Switzerland and you're fine I think thank you you now got me think you know please it's time with this question okay have you got examples from your own but you that was a very interesting to hear about your own examples some of the causes in a contract from your perspective what are some of the I guess more interesting either from a legal standpoint or this unusual clauses you've seen in contracts something you see a lot for example are close closest regarding low performance so if the player has a low performance whatever that means that the club is entitled to to fire to terminate the contract and and of course that is a very abusive clause because it can be used any time and it's completely subjective so what is a low performance right so and that is seen a lot fortunately the DRC never accepts it but the DRC is the dispute resolution chamber from FIFA and players can all only go to the DRC if it's an international dimension so if the player is an international in that club but for domestic players it's a very tricky Clause that appears a lot and damages a lot of players that's interesting you know know that you do a lot of work and have fun particularly on performance bonuses as an example so is there something you're seeing in terms of no clubs are very keen to and their life before they invest into a player so how they're gonna be able to afford to play them and how yeah make sure that they're getting rewarded for good performances yeah I suppose my position on that is even you know I think even in the Premier League I think clubs don't spend as much time as they should thinking about those issues I think um you know a lot of clubs still take a very traditional approach that's it's been you know there since the birth to the Premier League really with but mostly you know fixed salaries and and a fairly basic bonus schedule that they don't pay out a huge amount under but which actually can often lead to rise with with in arguments with the players and it always seems to me those bony schedules you know bring no benefit and potentially cause some damages so I'm very surprised that clubs still use them and there's only one or two clubs in the Premier League that don't use them I suppose the one that stands out for me is as the least rational or the one that I'm still surprised that you see our goal bonuses so you know there are two two clubs in the Premier League that still pay really substantial go bonuses you know there's one in particular that pays you know players can earn half their weekly salary or even more sometimes with a ratchet based on the gold bonus and you know to me incentivizing yesterday argument is what goals are good goals help you win matches and winning matches is what we're trying to do outside the club earns money and goals do correlate well with success but obviously an individual player scoring a lot of goals doesn't necessarily and he may be you know taking the wrong option because he's got a massive incentive in his in his contract when he should be passing the ball so that's every you know basic example but it's one that I'm really surprised just to still see you know there's some sophistication I just said a point here I mean we have now the Barcelona namer case where they're discussing if the signing bonus is due or not because it just renewed the contract last year or some months ago and he's is demanding that the full signing bonus is paid and they are asking for the money back so I remember when I came to FC Porto like I don't know six 17 years ago and there was always practice of the club to pay a signing bonus and many times the sign I posed of bonus for the player was then shifted to the agent or to the father so similar to this case as well and I remember I was not sure I mean if this guy and it's now 1 million for the signing bonus and next year is gone then it's complicated for the club so I pepper peptide baptised it at that time a loyalty bonus and if it was a 4-year term contract I said ok we pay you 250 year and make sure you pay it in September after the summer transfer season and subject of the player being registered with the club and after three years the play was gone it was Diego and so at least we saved there I think almost 7 750 because you know he needed to be the third term to get the second installment so these are small details but if you are long enough in a club you end up automatically thinking about these clauses and I don't think I think that the core of any contracts is already in the regulations of FIFA I mean the core that was decided I don't I don't I'm not saying that is the the best concept but I think that the core of the rules that must be respected like for instance that the contract cannot be subject to a validity of medical of virocana of the healthy condition of the player or of a visa so you have the core of any global conference but you cannot avoid that you have some interpretation under the domestic law and I go I'm just giving you an example maybe 4/5 Pro it's it's something to think about there's something good and for the club's of course there's a there's an alert very strong in that in Brazil recently we had the first case when we were defending international eNOS car and he went to be released from Sao Paulo and he has a decision in first instance on the merits he sign with interns are now in in the end by a total stranger decision the judge in the second instance sent him back to some Paulo and then was the first time where habeas corpus was used to release this player to come back to international we used that in a very very tip extraordinary situation because there was no precedent of saying that he was obliged to be training some Paulo's facilities since he said I don't want to play for some part of the consequences of this decision would be evaluated in the future if he gave cost to the termination or the club but the fact that definitely he could not be obliged to be playing or training and other facilities that the one there are not the interest but recently for more ordinary situations habeas corpus are being granted recently for players that are simply they don't like they don't want to be anymore linked to a club and they are using that and recently we are facing one case like that against Inter now the player didn't even file the habeas corpus and we know that is an English institution that we imported in and we know that the case that someone can file another Rios on behalf of someone before is for a situation that there's nothing to do with this situation which means that not even the player in discs this situation put his face to say I want to go so this is this is really tricky and about a very I think it's a good example of an excess in favor of the club is the arias a case re other case it's never been discussed in auditoriums in in forums like this I don't know why because it's the it's the first and only as far as I know case before the cast where moral and sporting damaged were awarded and the situation there were critical because the player was suffering a cancer and he was simply dismissed by Olympia from Paraguay arias is a year one player was a top player he was playing really well in Libertadores that year and it was a very cruel situation that he suffered there in the contract the contract says that in case the club terminates the contract the club has to pay only the days until the end of the year in course in the club serve determination on the thirty of December off of a certain year of course the cards dismiss that and one thing about that so this this is a this is not a way to draft a contract in good faith because you can use that in why in this situation but what caused the attention is the fact that everybody that analyzed specially clubs this decision of re also says that the standards were too high it was so extraordinary the situation that was granted and I disagree with that because for me from a Brazilian culture that I mean moral losses is very common there to be awarded and I think that if a player goes training or goes out to have dinner with his family and come back in the keys that were changed or he's obliged to training in the ice or in situations that are not ordinary I think these situations all of them all of them could justify moral losses on behalf of a player I don't think they are ordinary you mentioned sporting sanctions already yesterday we were talking you basically saying not misrepresents in your view that you don't think that's been used enough by FIFA in the sense that you know where there are situations where a player is of you abusing the contractual cinch and the the club aren't receiving any sporting sanctions they met a pair of settlement can't get your views on that minor no as I read my lecture of the of the the regulations that once the contract was terminated without just cause by any of the parties during the protected period it's mandatory to apply sporting sanctions but we don't see that very often especially against the clubs and I think that is being more rare at a bug against the players also but that then we are we are making empty the concept of protected period because sometimes you're teasing chariot well yes it's worth explaining became of article 17 with the fief transfer regs provides for the player basically unilaterally terminating a contract so at any time a player can walk away from a contract if it's within a protected period which is three years for players owner twenty seven two years for players over twenty seven then he will receive a sporting sanction and also financial compensation if you're outside the protected period then it's just for natural compensation well but the case law hasn't been as daniel said uniform in in always applying a sporting sanction I think one point that is useful and I think this is an interesting issue article 17 so article 17 these unilateral termination cases a lot of you would have heard of the Webster case but it hasn't been used very much you know it's been in the regulation since 2002 it wasn't used until Webster and then because the Webster case and then other cases that have applied the lowness in a different way there was a little bit of confusion as to how it would work it's pretty settled now that its market value basically the compensation but it seems to me das article 17 a is potentially going to become more important because one thing you know it's interesting for us to talk about is this summer maybe even in the last couple of years we've seen a little bit of a shift in the dynamic of player power that you know previously a player who really wanted to leave a club seemed to be able to find a way to force their way out and we've seen you know this summer a lot of very high-profile cases you know van Dijk Cuttino Sanchez I'm sure there's a few others where players very obviously and clearly wanted to leave a club and weren't able to get out and the reason they weren't able to get I wasn't because there was nothing that wasn't another club willing to pay their market value I think at all of those cases to work clubs who were willing to pay market value for those players but it was it was the their current clubs exercising their power and saying you're not going whatever the price and in cases like that article 17 when you know that the conversation there would be awarded his market value even though you don't know exactly what that number is I think you could see players being more willing and clubs you know the the buying Club effectively being more willing to say yes let's use article 17 and let's let's see what the compensation is it's worth it to acquire this player and what that means is if the protected period becomes more important so you want to be able to get outside that protected period and further younger players so that's it's four years or what you might see is players you know because there's been some talk that maybe players will start signing shorter contracts to give them that more power because when you're in the last one year two years a contract you have more leverage a little bit that always knows work as we saw this summer but with you you could say similarly the players will be looking to get it so the protected period so maybe they will sign longer deals still but they won't renew the deals they won't have this every year taking an extra 5% taking extra 10% to add an extra year because that resets the protected period because much like when you're coming to the end of a contract if you're coming one year away from being outside you're protected period that gives you leverage because you can say to the club well look next summer I might side to protected period I can serve my article 70 notice and I can go notwithstanding that I've got a six year contract so I think one trend to look out for for me you know people have talked to mature of contracts maybe that would happen I think what will happen or well advise players will probably not renew their contracts for small bumps to keep that leverage of the protected period some tax issues she's around image riots and how they dropped into contact before I do Justin you will be on this all sporting sanctions against gloves yeah yeah well that's a big issue for us as well in in fifth Pro because we see that sporting sanctions as Daniel was mentioning are applied much much more on players than on clubs and now like the sort of decision that FIFA has made but it's of course not published and it's not official it's like in if in the last two years there are five breaches of the club then they apply the sanctions and it's just crazy because as he was mentioning like this is not what article 17 states so if you don't want that in the article you modify the regulations but you don't ignore a part and then take the other part that fits you so yeah I think it's it's a real shame that that happens a lot within the the regulations right customs and norms that takes place because I know there was an issue in Germany around changes we've transferred miners the registration of miners over the transfer window they had an extension which will do something they just revoked that extension and they said we're not doing that anymore they've done it for a few years and also they change there's something you see within within FIFA that there's these sorts of practices they're sort of introduced outside of the regulations to give some some flexibility but also then quite uncertainty yeah well I think there there are many examples and also when you asked specifically about it the the replies are always of course quite vague so it's not - so it's very difficult to know what we're dealing with so I really think that we should look into the regulations and try to adapt them improve them and and if there are things that we don't agree with because the supporting sanctions you might think are too harsh or not like okay that's arguable but then just change the regulations and don't do as if they did not exist but to follow up on a point I think you know enforcement of regulations is key there as well because it's all well and good the regulations saying something but but unless it's enforced then that's meaningless and you know one example I think we can all agree is you know that is contrary to the players interest is third-party ownership you know the third-party ownership has been banned and you know most people within the industry think that is a good thing but doctrine in in the football industry I try to present a portable meaning I saw you presented to industry okay okay so just making some of us not everyone no agree agree okay not everyone agrees but a lot of people but there are some countries in which that ban is not being enforced you know that there is TPO going on and particularly you know agents acting is effectively a third party and you know owners taking interest in future transfers and you know clearly that's not happening in England bush you know I've been surprised to see that it is happening still in other countries and it is banned everywhere and it ultimately there needs to be an appetite for the regulators to to regulate and I think there isn't the appetite in most areas for FIFA to to get involved and they do rely on the national associations and other national associations don't necessarily care okay just about that there's something that I think it's very interested to say I don't I don't agree that the interpretation of the of the ban on on third party is that the player is also a third party on his own transfer which for me is I cannot understand that he never works in practice no no sir I mean economic rights third party ownership is the participation of a third party on the future profits of a transfer of a player that's the most common way to know that but for me the player cannot be considered a third party in his own transfer because is it's so natural that we had in Brazil a mandatory participation of a percentage in the past and it still exists in your wine Argentina in your wine Argentina I think I think that is at least 15 percent yeah 20 year way to enter some which means that the player under the Argentinian wine law is can receive 30 percent over his transfer and what's happening what's happening that opens the door so you put recognized to the player and buy another private the instruments the player agrees with a real third party so this is happening there and this brings an imbalance in the market because we cannot do that in Brazil of course there are people doing in many forms but I haven't seen any reaction from FIFA because it doesn't matter if an argentinian law provides that we have many laws in brazil that provides differently from the regulations but what I mean is that first of all the first mistake is to say the player is a third party in regards to his own transfer which can I just as I totally agree with Daniel I mean I was I was at that time in the working group of fifth about third party ownership banning or and and I think it's the reason why FIFA is not not speaking or investigating or handling this case is because I think they are embarrassed about it because first of all they they deliberately put aside the player considering the player in his own transfer a third party ownership and I mean FIFA was there and she didn't didn't ask for the player to be there I mean I did anyway no super did not agreed that the player would be a third party agreed by the agreed yeah I was there where it was it well that's the official they did I mean it was very very the whole Rojo working group I mean it was embarrassing because I mean there was not even a transitional period there wasn't what they considered the transitional period was not a transitional period because the season was already ongoing anyway the problem relies on the fact that officially in some countries as in Brazil and Argentina and many other countries in South America it's still officially included and also in Portugal we see it every day I mean people who are in football they do do business it's every day there but under the table so you have an official prohibition but it's like the bootleg in in the 30s or whatever when it was in Chicago everybody's drinking but the reality somewhat desoto such yeah like that that's what I was surprised at I mean I knew that people will try and find ways around GP I wanted to be all sorts of schemes and sale but there are certain countries where it's just being still done on the face of the contracts and that's what I was surprised by I you know that it's not hidden it's not underground right the enforcement like many many regulations are not being enforced in the countries even the ones that that according to the RSTP should be enforced directly like directly apply because there are two kind of let's say regulations within the rstp there are ones that have to apply directly to the Federation's and some others have to be like the the nature or the idea has to be implemented so definitely I think that it should be a matter to be reviewed by FIFA because the the existing the present situation is really not nice I mean everything is going on officially unofficially and and few phases these rules which first of all they don't make sense from the legal point of view there are many many doubts that that it's lawful I mean I think there's in the European Court some kind of of claim going on but but definitely there are some serious doubts legally and and from from a functionality and and point of view there is it doesn't make any sense so if they want to if they want to prohibit maybe let's regulate it but do it in a sensible way yeah so what would be the mechanism then so so from other consensus on the panel would be then the ban on third party ownership is he's actually not being that effective because in reality is still going on in the markets where it is most prominent and the enforcement of it it's not really effective so than before because now it's in a black market and if they would regulate to that the thing is to be clear you can have economic rights being generated by many forms to promise pay something to someone that brings you a player without money invested but the classical form is when someone really injects money in and as a result if there's a profit on the transfer then there's a share I think this economic right specifically should be regulated input it clearly disclose that in the TMS in the in the domestic Federation's instead of simply saying that it doesn't exist because the needs keep existing and I don't I've never understood really wife if Pro where where the when it affects negatively the player I mean honestly I'm not we discussed at me and Danny we make a lot of efforts Brazilian clubs he was there in Brazil with came here we went to the common ball we made a huge fight on that but the institutions were not on our side our Federation's in everything but I never understood why v proof thinks that this I mean this good economic rights could affect the players because in my point of view there's more money classical example someone that has money goes to a small club that cannot have twenty forty fifty players any sponsors that with this money so you'll have places for fifty possible professionals in the future so I honestly didn't understand that I think I've already touched on the reason though you know but I'm getting it today rights or wrongs of you know regulation of tpo so you can have good TPO and not pout gpo first is a ban so what are getting into you know my views on that put even if you believe that regulation is the way to go for regulation to work please be enforcement and we've already discussed fix them you know there are so many different areas where enforcement you know what we already have is not working so if we can't rely on the enforcement of ungrate and regulation of TPO would require a huge amount of effort to properly enforce then we just need to balance hey it's very it's very important what you just said in my view because if you have a good law I think you have also you are have more courage to make the enforcement and to investigate and tomorrow monitor eyes it as they did it FIFA by absolutely banning it I think they are almost ashamed because they're doing every everywhere this kind of it's everywhere so I don't think where they they will start so we have find a scapegoat and begin with Brazil or with poor for instance just now in this transfer season I saw a player didn't move he wanted to move in his last year because the club had only 30 percent of the so-called economic riots so for the club the coach wanted to keep him and the club said ok fine because we only have 30 percent we will lose him next year but we don't care because we will only receive 30 percent and I think if it this will be regulated and we talked about it at that time we say is it 50 percent that that the third party could have is it less than that we could find a balance so the sporting side of the competition and of the player would be protected as well and I think it's important not only to have a good regulation between force it but it comes together if for instance like in Portugal you have a rule that says in the highway you cannot you cannot have a you have a speed limit of 120 kilometres per hour when with the new cars it's ridiculous if you fall asleep so with good with good highways and mortal cars you will fall asleep so nobody enforces it but then then you have to find about it so let's change the law and let's enforce it so he's always very fair in terms of do you want to reply out well it's just like yeah we we agree on the banning of tpo because we see a lot of consequences on the players because let's just to make it a little bit yeah general because the players were not they were not being transferred where they wanted to or how they wanted to they were being moved around by the will of this third party so their their will was not being respected because sometimes players didn't even know how many entities or which entities were owing their economic rights because there was a lot of this money from football that was going out of football to these companies and we think that it's better that it's kept with the players one of the things that I just wanted to mention is that of course maybe what you might have in mind right now are they name ours the message the sweat as you know all the greats that Arnold owes but just too so that you bear in mind that forty five percent of the players worldwide and this is a study that we have made so it's really what the University of Manchester it's not our opinion earn less than one thousand dollars per month and twenty one percent of all the amount north of the forty five 21 percent of the hundred earn less than three hundred dollars per month and that is the reality so most of these things that were talking about have more consequences on all this big amount of players than on the top stars thank I'm gonna go to the floor for questions but the I think it's a really good point so I think you know in sport in football and the most other scores as well we see with the successes and the pinnacles and the Neymar deals and so forth forget about the umbrella of people dipping in and dipping out all the time particularly the players and we've got a whole bunch of issues that we haven't even touched on gonna make a provocation just one for something a paradox this interest that moves a player from a place to another that concerns in terms of economic rights exist only in the big cases the economic rights for the seventy or 45% in 21 give them the chance to play in some some somewhere you can see what I tell you a very good Africa questions questions from the floor as everyone does want to go and any questions no okay right gentleman at the front and then the second one if you can say your name and organization please yes hi good afternoon yes I undertook some legal and I will ask them for their opinion because some they are talking a lot about the financial problems that the claps can have because of the TP opening in this case they say that that third party ownership is a big part of the financial income of the of the club and they are proposing some alternative options like for example the omission of bonds and the possibility that the third parties can take a part in the club and not the player what do you think about that alternatives do you think that could that could be an option to replace the third party ownership on the players right all right okay so I'm just good disappearance this four times to give General Charles so what do you think about alternatives to TP Oh quick you can be quick fire that degree though okay I understand the bonds part the second part I didn't understand can you just clear that please which was all right alternative by assuming part of the depths of the club for example I mean you can be creative but at the end if you're receiving if receiving a part of the transfer revenue of the player you still gonna end up doing third party ownership I mean then you can shift to club ownership as well which apparently for FIFA is fine so so I mean you can't be creative you know instead of also establishing a percentage certain percentage you can you can do it from amounts from if the player is sold from 1 million to 5 you get X epsilon and you put fixed amounts and you can make a cascade you can be creative you can make bonds you can make whatever you you you find will be a will be a an attractive product for the investor but at the end of the day you got to be careful because if you received if you link it to the transfer of the player you're still gonna end up being in the set party ownership territory even there there there's a difference in country to country as well so the types of security the types of security exactly the finance when you're learning the clubs that you can't even Spain or Portugal you can't you in this country for example so it's not just the FIFA bad that each National Association have introduced you know remember nationalizations introduced their own rules so it does the security chambers and exchange chambers will have also to verify and and and and give their their okay to to those operations yeah and again we come back to the the the enforcement issue there's a lot of people doing their clubs that are following the rule on not doing you know there were definitely people looking to investing in squads as soon as the bank came out you had there's various problems they do that thank you very soon gentlemen good afternoon my name is Mort Allah from Nigeria I wanted to make a quick comment and then ask a question I think in the comment break because okay great under third-party ownership I mean if you look at when from Nigeria I think that it's going to exist for a while because of the poverty level there agreed a lot of the players negotiating from an unfair advantage point and but they jump into it because really it's the bridge for them to progress in that career so I think would continue for a while but I wanted to touch on the specifics of the contract situation between Diego Costa and Chelsea and of course you talked about our protected period for the players and what have you but I was wondering so Acosta now says he doesn't want to move to which Chelsea wants to serve into a different cover he wants to go back to Atletico of course I know maybe maybe his contracts would have stipulated penalties for those kind of breaches but if Chelsea now wants him to play with the reserved or dusty juste can hear the player say look I'm a professional I cannot live with the reserves because they don't play on a professional level I mean who wants to take that well from the player's perspective right with if we think about the players rights and the right to work and the right of freedom and Nola then I would say that of course he could work out but the problem is that the consequences that he may face right that's one of the things that one was mentioned before I don't remember who mentioned it but it's oh yeah Daniel did that it's really important to insert in the contract like for which team the player is going to play because in if it was stated that the play was going to play for the main team then everything is much clearer so it's better to do it that way in this case I think it could be easily argued that a player of that of that size was not hired to play in the in the reserve team but still it can lead to a lot of trouble - yeah complaint before the DRC that will probably be a appeal to Kass and that takes years and that also makes it really difficult for the player to find a new club because the new club will be joined and severally liable for the amount to be paid and that is such a big burden to carry for the players so it's it's a very delicate issue I entirely agree I think the problem the big I think one thing is that there's another kind of contracts there you also can provide that that if the club is relegated the player is also free big players when they live specially in Germany is a very common to put that in the contracts Lucia from the Brazilian national team has this clause nay but I think that when when the player is sent to player with the reserves because he's not well technically this is something that I think the club can do and it's a proper manner to deal with the contract that is fair but when the club does that just to put pressure on the player to force him to go then I think that he has on the merits reason to terminate the contract we've just caused but as Alexander says it's gonna be very difficult to find another club that accepts to share or to jointly respond by the risk strongest positive no comment hi guys my name is Francisco I'm glad we're all having a great afternoon and it's been a spicy and energetic debate you mentioned briefly image rights and I've heard a lot of conversation on tpo and let's go to a specific example on Cristiano Ronaldo where his lawyer comes and says it's a question of interpretation so I'd like to see FIFA's view on it and also a legal view on it around image rights and what can we expect on next stages of this discussion okay so so the question would be really where we're gonna see image rights goes off he er yeah since he grabbed the Nestle well I think what image right so the I mean the position has changed a lot in recent years and we've kinda had a situation now in Europe through England is pretty much the only country where where we see club image rights deals done anymore so you know Germany and France was broken anyway I mean Spain it was pretty common and then the legislation changed and it doesn't happen so much anymore and in I think France is just to the law in which they can on the plant contractor imagery analysis allowing it okay right right but previously was provided and Italy again you you normally see it so it actually gave a bit of an advantage to the English clubs and and so what's happened in England in the for the last three years as as Francisco will know better than most people but there was basically a an agreement a place between the Premier League clubs and HMRC that a set percentage of revenue salary could be paid as image rights and provided you stay within those parameters then both at a club level and a player level then the HMRC didn't get involved and that agreement ended this summer so Annette we're now in a period where they've issued a new set of guidelines and the new guidelines basically just say there's no agreed level you just have to be commercial so there has to be a real link between what you're paying his image rights and the rights your your clubs receiving and how the club exploit those rights so we've got a bit more uncertainty here I think you know we would still see image rights being used you know there's one piece this one Court case in this country which which kind of sets the foundation for the legitimacy of image rights and I think when you think about it clearly these players are big stars they receive a lot of money for a personal endorsement so you know it's it's right that a club can use that image to generate revenue to its own endorsements and you know it makes sense but clearly there has been abuse in the past I think there's a little bit of an extra uncertainty it's probably good news for lawyers to some extent because you don't have those set percentages so now clubs really have to take proper advice dealt with the proper structures in place and they do you need probably help steering through to ensure that they're not upsetting target for H or C this is the domestic though it seems even if you did all the modeling so you can cure your higher firm you doll the model in it's a bad investment right and the player doesn't come off that you can still be getting a bit of trouble though they've you know essentially the image Ryan structures are based on the fact that you are going to commercialize in the future yeah you can see that being retrospectively a problem if someone you know you don't you don't actually achieve what you thought you were gonna achieve you see that being quite yeah I mean the key is commercially ality at the time the agreement was entered into so provided your your basis is based on you know fair assumptions you know if the player ends up being not quite as good as you thought or breaks his leg then you know I think HMRC would struggle to take action against you for that the other panelists what do you think about image watches generally in terms of evading or avoiding tax or being beneficial or not to the player or club or agent yeah well we have seen a lot especially cases going to the DRC where there are double contracts and and there was in a certain time a lot of doubts were like because many Football Association's say like now we only accept one contract and the contract is registered so this image writers were not image rights contractor were not registered where could not be presented in the claim before the the DRC but the DRC decided that in most of these cases of course you have to look at the specific case but this image rights contests were actually only at these guys and they were putting part of the salary in this image rights contract only to avoid as you were saying taxi payment of taxes etc so and this was normally decided by the club and the club just presented both countries and told the player okay you have to sign here you have to sign here and the player deed and of course place should be more instructed and do things right but the truth is that it was really coming like from the employer side so it couldn't be used against the player so normally a DRC does accept the two contracts as part of the salary because they say it's salaried it's being disguised in the same line in Brazil the this was very prejudicial to the player because there are there were some clubs in the past the first division of the Brazilian football that put 80 percent in image rights and 20 on salary and the consequence of that is that the Brazilian law says that if if there's any overdue payment in regards to salaries or something for for 90 days not three months but 90 days then the player can simply ask for a preliminary injunction and go but it was not recognized the same consequence to the image rice contracts now the law was changed and also image rights when they're not paid the player can use the same scape I'm sorry the amount paid for social security as well just brackets the the point to pick up this one for this question though a Ronaldo who because what he did get into a difficulty with with relation to the offshore rights and so that is one change we've seen in the last six months I think in this country HMRC SR previously non non Thomas Oil players who were resident here but not domiciled here we're using jewel structures with an English company and an offshore company and HMRC accepted that post that is one area to where they've they've changed their approach heading in the last six months and the use of offshore companies now or you know obviously it's companies for the foreign rights it's coming under scrutiny so what you could do is seeing because what they say is that once the rights of you know once the club has generated the money it's common to UK and our tanks being paid back outside the UK then it's it's within the UK tax debt but what you could see is clubs so you could see you know a Fordham international being set up in the BVI are came in and they're all offshore international revenues that clubs generate doesn't come into the UK it actually stays offshore because clubs are generating you know millions and millions of pounds internationally there's no reason that it it should necessarily come and it stays offshore and then if the demet writes contracts with the foreign companies are paid using the international companies then they come never comes into the UK tax net so that's one thing I could see happening I mean everything was said but it's obvious obviously a request that comes from the club who is trying to reduce its tax burden towards the the players remuneration so my advice is that place should really be careful there should be a link that should be a really small percentage and the best would be to try to avoid it but and make sure that if there are some tax liabilities the burden falls for the club and not for the player definitely the tax authorities is go particularly Europe anyway at least again much more aggressive and it's growing a headlines for them so politically I think yeah I thought to their favor we've got one final question from the floor and I'll be giving the signal and the lights are flashing that we need to go before the stage blows up hi my name is Andrea I just would like to ask a question about continuous contract basically last year he signed a new contract and suddenly this year he handed in a transfer request to Barcelona and Liverpool and Liverpool said no you have no price I just would you like to know what kind of benefits you might get in a contract without clothes because it's a risk now he's not happy he wants to move but he has contracted to 2022 if you leave it will say no I'm not gonna sell you so what kind of a benefits you have to sign a contract without the clothes how is you so so yeah so who are you talking about I mean the player the benefits for the player yeah I mean I wasn't quite clear on that question yeah I mean why I think you're asking why would a player saw in the contract like that without a release clause yeah yeah yeah I mean it's different country to country you know and obviously in Spain every player has a automatic fire clause you know the market standard in England is you don't have release closes Empire closes but you know we've spent a bit of time talking about article 17 so article 17 does effectively provide you know a type of bio right for every player provided you get outside the protected period so with some alacrity no if he signed the new contracts last year then in another well in another two years he'll have you know a potential to just walk away and that will give him some increased leverage probably next summer and if he raises the issue again with his club I think the answer for me is really easy when you negotiate a contract to negotiate many issues and at a certain point he accepted that because he received something really good in in another part of the contract so it's easy yeah when this level of player talking about that level of player not speaking about a player that earns like thousand horizon has to accept anything to eat so at this level that's why because the other conditions were worthwhile for him so just to wrap up or please we just give a warm round of applause for the panelists and for you for asking such great presidents dad so that was this quite clearly it seems the contract is less of an issue if you've got access to good lawyers and the this the system in which you operate within is a bigger problem anyway now is it thank you all have a great off then the rest of her convention you

Channel: Soccerex

Views: 1,861

Rating: 4.8888888 out of 5

Keywords: player contracts, football, law, football business, sports contracts, soccerex, business of football, soccerex global convention, protection

Id: 0AfGZEtJzG0

Length: 66min 40sec (4000 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 11 2017