Adodo Osewengie
Poised to regulate the transfer of players on loans by football clubs, the world football governing body, Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has developed a new framework to reform the transfer system for players going on loans.
The reform process was started in 2017 with its implementations slated for July 2020 but due to the emergence of the deadly Covid19, it was delayed.
With the core objectives geared towards developing young players, promoting competitive balance, and preventing the hoarding of players, FIFA ensured it consulted with relevant football stakeholders to lay the foundation of this new framework.
FIFA understands that to make the objectives realistic, it formulated the framework which reads in part:
“The requirement of a written agreement defining the terms of the loan, in particular, its duration and financial conditions.
“A minimum loan duration, being the interval between two registration periods, and maximum loan duration, being one year.
“A prohibition on sub-loaning a professional player who is already on loan to a third club.
“A limitation on the number of loans per season between the same clubs: at any given time during a season, a club may only have a maximum of three professionals loaned out to a single club and a maximum of three professionals loaned in from a single club.
“A limitation on a club’s total number of loans per season”, it said.
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According to the world football governing body, the smooth implementation of the new framework will take effect from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023, noting that a club may have a maximum of eight professionals loaned out and eight loaned in at any given time during a season.
Furthermore, FIFA asserted that from 1 July, 2023 to 30 June, 2024, the same configuration applies but with a maximum of seven professionals. It also said that from 1 July 2024, the same configuration will apply but is limited to a maximum of six professionals.
While FIFA has confirmed that the regulation takes effect from 1 July, 2022 after it submits the regulation for loanees to the FIFA Council for approval at its next meeting, it decided that the regulation exempts players of 21 years of age and below and club-trained players from this regulation.
