The world’s top football agents have complained to the European Commission that new FIFA rules will unfairly harm their earning potential.
They have accused the world football governing body of showing “gross disrespect for applicable competition law,” according to a confidential complaint seen by POLITICO, as FIFA moves to cap fees that agents can earn from player transfers.
In the complaint, addressed to the Commission’s powerful competition department, the agents say FIFA’s rules will “restrict competition within the internal market by fixing purchasing prices.”
Adopting the regulations would also “constitute an abuse of FIFA’s dominant position by directly and indirectly imposing unfair trading conditions, including purchasing prices,” they add.
FIFA has brought in new regulations for agents, some of whom make huge sums of money brokering transfer deals between clubs — from Europe’s megabucks top divisions all the way down the football pyramid.
FIFA said the rules have the “objective of reinforcing contractual stability, protecting the integrity of the transfer system and achieving greater financial transparency.”
But agents are not impressed, and say FIFA never “sincerely consulted” them during the drafting process for the new legislation. FIFA denies this charge, saying it “initiated a five-year consultation process, involving agents, agent representative organizations, players, clubs, leagues and associations. The [rules] are a result of this process.”
The EU complaint has been submitted on behalf of The Football Forum (TFF), an association that represents football agents and players, and includes some of the sport’s most influential movers and shakers.
Members of the TFF board include so-called super-agents Jorge Mendes and Rafaela Pimenta, who represent a host of top stars.
In the complaint, the agents argue that FIFA’s “restrictions cannot be justified by any efficiencies or pro-competitive considerations. Instead, they threaten to disrupt the professional football player labor market and the football agent services market.”
The complaint adds that the work of small- and medium-sized agents will be negatively affected by the new regulations and “respectfully asks the Commission to prevent FIFA from adopting and implementing the abovementioned rules.” The European Commission’s competition department declined to comment.
Elements of the rules came into force in January this year — but there is a transition period until October 1 before other aspects, including the cap on fees, begin to apply.
TFF Executive Vice President Christian Rapp accused FIFA of “cartel activity.”
“TFF supports high ethical standards, but FIFA transgresses the boundaries of legitimately regulating its internal affairs,” he said. “It usurps the power to regulate economic activity of third parties and fix prices to the benefit of the clubs indirectly represented in FIFA. This is cartel activity. Courts and competition authorities cannot ignore this.”
In a statement, FIFA hit back: “The football transfer system is an ecosystem with human beings at its core. It is not comparable to a ‘market’ in an economic sense. As the sport’s world governing body, FIFA has the responsibility to regulate this system, to ensure its proper functioning and to protect all those involved in it. FIFA and the highest European authorities (such as the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe) have identified a number of very serious and dangerous problems within this ecosystem,” a spokesperson said.
The rules “are a reasonable and proportionate regulatory step to resolve the serious problems within the football ecosystem related to agent activities,” the spokesperson added.
