Part 3: FIFA Training Compensation – Article 20 RSTP

Part 3: FIFA Training Compensation – Article 20 RSTP ⚽️

If you haven’t read Parts 1 and 2, it would be a good idea to take a quick peak at those before reading Part 3.

Training Compensation (“TC”) is an absolutely amazing initiative by FIFA however its implementation can be somewhat problematic when transferring players from Africa to….. well, wherever really.

Take a look at some of the issues I have come across below (in no particular order):

***A barrier to a transfer

One issue is the need to waive the right to TC when the player is being transferred, otherwise the transfer ain’t happening. This is obviously because it’s a lot of money for a buying club to spend on an untested player, and probably see the risk in spending that much as quite high. What if the player doesn’t settle in? What if he isn’t as good as they think he is? What if he gets injured? What if? What if? What if? 🤷🏽‍♀️…. Therefore, in a lot of club to club contracts you will see some variation of the clause below:

“X FC hereby explicitly confirms that it renounces and waives any possible right to training compensation as mentioned in article 20 and annexe 4 of the FIFA RSTP.”

I was contacted a while back to advise a selling club who had waived its right to TC. In fact, not only did it waive its own right, but it waived the collective rights of the other training clubs, and signed a contract with the buying club taking responsibility for any claims made against the buying club for TC 🤦🏽‍♀️🙆🏽‍♀️. The selling club informed me that it had a contract with the other training clubs to share a future sell-on fee.

Unfortunately, there’s always one… 😂! One training club filed a claim to FIFA for its share of TC, which the buying club had to honour. The buying club then came looking for the selling club, who initially refused to pay, but on hearing FIFA’s “gavel” and possible sanctions, had to cough up €10,000👨🏼‍⚖️🤑.

***Being transferred to a Category 4 club

If you’ve read Part 1, you will know that TC is not paid when a player is transferred to a Category 4 club. A lot of African players end up in such clubs in Europe, and therefore their training clubs aren’t entitled to any TC.

However, I worked on a very interesting case involving a European club which on paper was a Category 4 club, and therefore didn’t have to pay TC. However, the training clubs went marching to FIFA claiming that the club could not possibly be a Category 4 club as its transfermarkt value was high, it appeared in UEFA competitions and it paid its players a decent wage. Guess what? FIFA agreed with the argument and overturned the MAs categorisation 😲.

***Issues with the Electronic Player Passports (“EPP”) and Transfer Matching System (“TMS”)

I won’t go into these in this article because I have already discussed them in great detail in others, but feel free to read my previous posts addressing these issues 😊


To enjoy the full benefit of this post and some interesting comments, you can also view it on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/eby-emenike-0726195_tbdfootballeducation-trainingcompensation-activity-7199288785031806976-iWu8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

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