Professional football tries to transfer the RSZ | Belgian Football

It is a recycled proposal that the Pro League, the association of professional football, is now coming up with. Almost three years ago she already put this on the table during a consultation in the Joint Committee for Sport. This means that the current social security ceiling will be increased from 2,426 euros to 4,638 euros per month.

This means that the professional athletes themselves should no longer pay a maximum of 317 euros per month, but that this will be increased to 606 euros. Those who earn more will still not pay an extra euro. Relatively speaking, this will mainly affect the smaller earners in football – young, starting professionals – and a large part of the volleyball and basketball players, namely those who have a gross monthly salary between 2,426 and 4,638 euros.

Club Brugge goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, top earner in Belgian football, will in that case pay 7,272 euros RSZ, an increase from 0.1 to 0.2 percent on his gross annual salary of 3.4 million euros. An ordinary employee pays 13.07 percent.

The Pro League proposes a similar ceiling for the social security contribution of the sports clubs – 25 percent of the total gross salary for ordinary employers. In addition, we work with brackets, for wages of more than 500,000 euros, 10 percent is paid. If we take the example of Mignolet again, Club Brugge would pay 324,104 euros on his annual salary, still a social security discount of more than half a million euros.

While Pro League CEO Pierre François seems to speak for the entire sports sector in internal communications, there is anything but consensus about his proposal. Volleyball and basketball don’t just like this. Moreover, it goes directly against the principle of the sports bonus, advocated by Minister of Social Affairs Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit). He especially wants to give the smaller professional athletes and clubs a boost, but make the absolute top players in football pay the full price.