A player who is considering self-terminating of his contract with a club should think very careful and seek a
specialized lawyers advice.
Let’s starts with a short story
about a Ghanaian player. In January 2015 he signed with a North African team
till the end of the 2017-2018 season. The club paid irregular and always too
late and by October 2016 the player was owned approximately 200K which equaled
to 2/3rd of his yearly salary at that moment.
The club intimidated the player via
punishment training which they also proudly announced on their website. Beside
that they were also so kind to inform him in writing that they had no intention
to pay him anymore unless he stopped a pending FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber
(‘DRC’) procedure. So there comes that moment at that the player thinks enough
is enough.
The club was far more than three months
behind with payments and the player self-terminated his contract. Now probably
most of us will think that’s fair enough. The player should go on sign with a
new club and get on with life. NO!
Well now that’s not how it works.
Club after club spoke with the player and discussed offers ranging between 200K
and 400K per year but all of them were in the end too scared to sign him. All
of them were put off by the FIFA regulations that oversee the signing of
players whose contract have been terminated.
How the FIFA regulations limit the
players freedom to work and from which corner help can be expected is explained
hereunder.
International registration after
contract expiration or multilateral termination
When a player’s contract with a club
ends after expiration of his contract or mutual termination he will not
normally encounter problems when he signs for a new club in a different
country. His new contract will be registered with the new football association
(‘FA’) which FA will request an International Transfer Certificate (‘ITC’) from
the former FA. If the new FA does not receive a response to the ITC request
within 15 days of the ITC request being made, it shall immediately register the
professional player with the new club on a provisional basis.
In everyday practice a new
registration after contract expiration or mutual termination happens flawless.
Restricted freedom of work after
unilateral termination
When a player or an agent hears the
words ‘unilateral termination’ he will most likely think of the situation where
a player after months of none payment decides that it has been enough and
terminates. There are however more scenario’s. Let’s list the 4 main ones:
In 3 out of 4 scenario’s (A,B and C)
clubs have an active role. They are the terminating party and or the party that
breaches the contract in such a way that the player has just cause to
terminate.
Only in one scenario the player is
the terminating party as well as the breaching and liable party (scenario D).
The position of a player whose
contract has been unilateral terminated differs drastically from other out of
contract players. He will face far greater obstacles when he wants to find a
new job because:
- A new FA needs prior authorization from FIFA to register the player provisional with a new club 2, and
- A new club is jointly liable for damages that a player will have to pay to his former club (type B & D). 3
The case of our Ghanaian player is
either a scenario C or D scenario depending on the outcome of his claims with
the DRC or the Court of Sport (‘CAS’) if there will be an appeal....Read More
