The World Football Association wants to ensure more transparency on the transfer market. Players’ agents go to court against the new set of rules – and are initially right.
According to a court ruling, players’ agents may continue to process transfers without the planned restrictions imposed by the world football association FIFA or the German Football Association (DFB).
In its judgment on Wednesday, the District Court of Dortmund provisionally prohibited the associations from applying, implementing and enforcing the FIFA Football Agent regulations. This stipulates, among other things, that players’ agents require a license from the world association. In addition, fees and commissions would have to be limited and certain information would have to be disclosed.
Two players’ agents and a players’ agent-GmbH had opposed this on the grounds that the regulations that came into force in part on January 9 were anti-competitive according to both European regulations and German law and that they would be subject to the ban on cartels. The 8th Civil Chamber followed this line of argument and granted the urgent legal protection applications in full (Az: 8 O 1/23).
Violation of the prohibition on cartels
The decisions of FIFA and the expected implementation by the DFB are likely to affect trade between the member states of the European Union and thus violate the ban on cartels, the judges ruled. It would also aim to prevent, restrict or distort competition within the internal market.
FIFA approved the new rules last October, which will come into full effect on October 1 of this year. Among other things, these limit the income of the player consultants to a maximum of ten percent of the transfer fee.
In addition, it should be prevented that advisors represent both the receiving and the releasing club in the event of a transfer. The world association wants to use the rules to ensure more control and greater transparency on the transfer market.
Large sums of money are paid every year in the player transfer business. In the Bundesliga, according to the German Football League (DFL), clubs spent between 32.78 million euros (Borussia Dortmund) and 878,000 euros (VfL Bochum) on intermediary services in the 2021 financial year. According to FIFA, the international transfer business in 2022 was around 586 million euros.
