FIFPro ask EU Commission to investigate money flow via transfers in Europe

The €222 million world record transfer of Brazilian footballer Neymar from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain is the latest example of how a select group of rich European clubs are ever more in control over football, FIFPro said on August 3.

In order to fortify their own position in the transfer market, the largest European clubs inflates transfer fees thus creating financial barriers against other clubs to compete with them.

“Football’s enormous wealth is trapped, research shows, within a few leagues and clubs when it could be redistributed more efficiently and fairly to help protect competitive balance, which is one of the fundamental objectives of the transfer system,” FIFPro General Secretary, Theo van Seggelen said in a statement on Friday, according to Reuters.

“FIFPro claims an inflated and distorted market, with escalating transfer fees at the heart of it, has helped to destroy competitive balance. The transfer rules governed by FIFA are anti-competitive, unjustified and illegal,” van Seggelen added.

FIFPro says changes in the transfer rules are needed in order to protect the rights of players and to safeguard the best interests of the game. In 2015 FIFPro filed a legal complaint to the competition unit of the European Commission to help rebalance football and bring an end to the ‘transfer market madness’. In Friday’s statement FIFPro asked the European Commission to revisit the issue of competitive imbalance in European football created by the rules of the transfer system.