By Andrew Warshaw
March 30 – FIFA have stepped up the battle against third-party ownership by sanctioning four clubs, including Europa League champions Sevilla, for breaching rules over players’ economic rights.
TPO has been banned by FIFA since May last year but some Latin footballing nations who have long claimed they rely on the practise for their stability have been slow to comply.
Sevilla have been fined SFr55,000 ($57,00) while famed Brazilian outfit Santos, Neymar’s former club, have been fined SFr75,000 ($78,000).
Both clubs have also been given warnings, while Holland’s FC Twente and Belgian side Sint-Truidense V.V. have also been fined SFr185,000 ($192,000) and SFr60,000 ($62,000) respectively.
Reports in Brazil suggested Santos, former world and South American champions, had been punished as a direct result of an investigation into the sale of Neymar to Barcelona which apparently involved two marketing groups.
The club was found “liable for entering into contracts that enabled third parties to influence the club’s independence in employment and transfer-related matters, failing to declare mandatory information in the International Transfer Matching System and failing to cooperate with an investigation”;
Sevilla were warned for “entering into contracts that enabled a third party to influence the club’s independence in employment and transfer-related matters and failing to enter mandatory information into ITMS”;
Twente, Dutch champions in 2009-10, are already teetering on the brink and in danger of losing their professional licence after being banned from European competition for three years in December for “deliberately misleading” the Dutch FA, partly with regard to their relationship with Maltese-based investment firm Doyen Sports.
Now they been hit by FIFA after they were “found to be liable for entering into contracts that enabled a third party to influence the club in employment and transfer-related matters, failing to upload a TPO [third-party ownership] agreement into the library in TMS [Transfer Matching System], breaching confidentiality rules and failing to declare mandatory information in ITMS [International Transfer Matching System]”.
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