The Football Forum learned that the FIFA Council has approved today the so called “FIFA Football Agents Regulations” (the “Regulations”) pursuant to the several statements made by FIFA in that regard since 2019.
The approval has taken place in the context of a meeting which was not announced to the public, and even less to agents who are the target of it, despite of all well-known speeches held by the “new FIFA” about transparency.
Such approval follows several invitations by TFF to FIFA to establish a genuine dialogue instead of trying to impose a set of regulations which had been decided before FIFA pretended to start talking to some group of individuals who alleged to have a representativeness of the category which FIFA perfectly knew they didn’t have. FIFA, however, has chosen to ignore all TFF’s invitations, as it was aware that any serious dialogue could never lead to the implementation of its orchestrated plan.
The Regulations are a clear attempt to dismantle the profession and to irreparably jeopardize the position of players. The practical consequences of the regulations will be to drive the majority of agents out of the market and reduce the possibility for those who will survive to carry out the profession in accordance with the highest standard. On the players’ side, the foregoing will result in the increased unbalance of the negotiation power towards clubs and, in most cases, in the impossibility to receive any kind of professional assistance in all circumstance when a player needs protection or guidance. Naivety or lack of adequate professional background or experience are not enough to justify a different opinion and any “agent” providing support to FIFA in that respect clearly decides to sacrifice the interests of an entire category for his own benefit (or in the hope of receiving some).
By approving the Regulations, FIFA and all its Council members severely infringed the laws, in particular the competition laws, of countless jurisdictions, among which the European Union (and its Member States), the United Kingdom and the United States of America.
TFF was established to “unite, organize and protect” all agents and players. From the very beginning, in fact, TFF has been coherently pursuing its mission to the benefit of its members and of the whole football industry and will therefore take all necessary steps to challenge the Regulations in any appropriate venue and seek redress for the damages which players and agents will suffer as a consequence of the above.