FIFA and FIFPRO, the World
Players’ Union, have reached an agreement to establish the FIFA Fund for
Football Players (FIFA FFP), which aims to provide financial support to players
who have not been paid and have no chance of duly receiving the wages agreed
with their clubs.
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FIFA has set aside USD 16m for
the fund up to 2022, with this allocation to be divided as follows: USD 3m in
2020, USD 4m in 2021 and USD 4m in 2022, plus a further USD 5m set aside for
the retroactive protection of players’ salaries for the period between July
2015 and June 2020.
Several recent reports –
including FIFPRO’s own 2016 Global Employment Report: Working Conditions in
Professional Football – have attested to the proliferation of cases involving
the non-payment of players’ salaries across the world.
In 2019, FIFA revised its
Disciplinary Code, wherein it bolstered the framework for dealing with the
non-payment of players’ wages, particularly in situations featuring so-called
sporting successors of debtor clubs, i.e. new clubs formed with the prime aim
of avoiding paying players their overdue salaries.
The agreement envisages the
establishment of a monitoring committee composed of FIFA and FIFPRO
representatives to process, assess and act on applications for grants from the
FIFA FFP. While these grants will not cover the full amount of salaries owed to
players, this fund will provide an important safety net.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino
welcomed this new initiative, stating: “This agreement and our commitment to
helping players in a difficult situation show how we interpret our role as
world football’s governing body. We are also here to reach out to those in
need, especially within the football community, and that starts with the
players, who are the key figures in our game.”
Likewise, FIFPRO President
Philippe Piat had the following to say about the fund: “More than 50 clubs in
20 countries have shut in the last five years, plunging hundreds of footballers
into uncertainty and hardship.
This fund will provide valuable support to those
players and families most in need. Many of these clubs have shut to avoid
paying outstanding wages, immediately re-forming as so-called new clubs. FIFPRO
has long campaigned against this unscrupulous practice and thanks FIFA for
combating it in its Disciplinary Code.”
This new mechanism will come
into operation on 1 July 2020.
-fifa.com
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