FIFA have banned Chelsea from signing new players for the next two transfer periods (that is, the January 2010 and Summer 2010 transfer windows). This comes as part of a decision by FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) on a contractual dispute regarding Gael Kakuta between Lens and Chelsea.
The French club had lodged a claim with FIFA seeking compensation for breach of contract from the player and had requested that sporting sanctions to be imposed on both Kakuta and Chelsea for breach of contract and inducement to breach of contract respectively.
The DRC ruled that Kakuta had indeed breached his contract with Lens and that Chelsea had ‘induced the player’ to such a breach.
As a result, Kakuta has been fined €780,000 (for which Chelsea are jointly liable) and both Kakuta and Chelsea have had sanctions placed on them.
While Chelsea are now banned from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, Kakuta is restricted from playing any official matches for the next four months. Furthermore, the club, Chelsea, have to pay Lens training compensation to the tune of €130,000.
A servere punishment but without knowing the full facts you can’t say for sure whether Chelsea were truly in the wrong or not. One thing is for certain – FIFA not only are keen on reducing the power and influence football clubs have but are also looking to police football transfers.
There will be many claims about other cases where clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid should also be ‘tried’ under the same rules, but at the end of the day we’re still waiting to see what evidence comes out of this decision and whether Chelsea really did screw this up or whether they were screwed over by FIFA.
But no new player registrations? Does that mean they can’t sign any free agents? Hopefully this doesn’t mean that they can’t draft new players (domestically) into their academy, or that it restricts them from offering contracts to players in their youth academy. Probably not.
But it’s still a severe ban, and you’d expect Chelsea to appeal this vociferously if possible.
Before people leave comments saying how Real madrid etc, are worse for tapping up. This is different. He has been actively encouraged to breach his contract and then signed so Chelsea didn’t have to pay compensation.
No doubt it will be overturned tough, however if it stood surely it would be detrimental to Chelsea with their aging squad.
Very interesting
I’m not for it but these types of deals happen every transfer window around europe. Chelsea have more than enough money and so avoiding a little compensation free is stupid BUT I do still think this is unfair on Chelsea.. Real Madrid made stealing Ronaldo from Man u (a player that had just signed a new contract) a public affair and yet still didn’t get any punishment.. Man u paid teenage Macheda’s parents large amounts of money in order to encourage him to leave Italy for England. So where do u draw the line? Fifa need to start being consistent.. If they going to punish clubs for tapping up then they need to stick to it, and likewise if they going to punish players for diving.. Why didn’t they announce this while the window was still open? Its clear that this decision was premeditated and that Fifa are doing everything possible to weaken English clubs
Al I have to say is: HAHAHAHA!
Chelsea will just save all the money they would have used and spend £120M on Messi!
messi would never go to such an antifootball club… this is hilarious there team is old also
the squad are old now, by 2011 they’ll be very old.
by 2011 chelsea will have plenty of players who are under 30.
Add to it terry, drogba, lampard, anelka, a.cole, carvalho and hilario as secondary players. Lampard will be like scholes playing till he is 35, terry and carvalho are defenders and last till that age as well. Only anelka, a.cole and drogba might struggle but a.cole hasnt had major injuries and hopefully drogba and anelka are decent rotation players.
alex, ivanovic, zhirkov, bosingwa, mancienne, sturridge, cech, j.cole, matic, kalou, mikel, essien, turnbull, di santo, stoch, and kakuta
In regards to tom, kakuta when signed was 15, he didnt have a contract with lens. What he had was a pre-contract. That isnt really a contract either more an understanding since if kakuta could sign a contract legally under french law he would have. Its like asking a 15 year old to sign a contract at wallmart at 16 he will recieve $200, legally the 15 old isnt allowed to sign said contract because he is too young.
It’s very difficult to prove these cases, therefore I assume (although with FIFA nothing would surprise me) that their case is fairly watertight.
No comparison with the Ronaldo case I’m afraid. People may not like Madrid’s public posturing but no rules were broken.
And it’s not a campaign against English clubs either. FC Sion of Switzerland were hit with the exact same punishment for the same offence and the player involed got the same suspension time.
Not sure why Chelsea are appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport though? This is a clear case for the ordinary courts in my view. Clear restriction of ability to compete. There is surely something in corporate anti-competitive legislation that pisses all over this sort of thing!
Any lawyers out there?
Not a lawyer (yet), but I have been interested in this story.
I believe under FIFA laws (in this case, the contravention came under the Regulation of the Status and Transfer of Players 2008), any appeal of a decision goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. The same Court that decided on the Adrian Mutu case.
Either way, Chelsea will appeal the decision. If they are lucky, they will get the sanction halved following the precedent regarding Roma in 2006. However, it may take a while for the dispute to be examined, so much so, that a decision may not be made before the January transfer window. If that is the case, a 1 transfer window sanction will apply to the the summer transfer window of 2010.
To anyone that thinks the ban is excessive, it is not an arbitrary ruling FIFA has made. Such conduct is found in the regulation mentioned prior, and is spelt out very clearly (Article 17, paragraphs 3 and 4). Chelsea should have been aware of the potential consequences of their actions and they only have themselves to blame.
And this case is very different to tapping up. Tapping up doesn’t involve any attempt to force a player to breach their contract, but it seems to gauge whether there is any interest on the side of the player before placing a bid. It is certainly unprofessional, but not like what has happened here.
The key word in article 17 paragraphs 3 and 4 is that the player is a professional. When kakuta signed for chelsea he was not a professional and thus that article should not apply to him.
Thanks A.M., good input!
But where does company law trump the ‘laws’ of sporting associations? Is this not a severe restriction of ability to compete? What, for example, if a player makes the case that Chelsea want to sign him and Chelsea concur but the ‘ban’ prevents the transaction. Could the player not challenge the ruling under EEC employment legislation…freedom of movement etc. etc.?
I just feel, as a non legal expert, that this is doomed to failure under company, not sporting, law.
@BD Condell
Not sure how the sanctions would comply with EU Company and Labour Law to be honest.
However, isn’t the ‘freedom of movement’ principle already infringed to an extent by the implementation of transfer windows? It restricts the movement of players within Europe to two periods of time.
It leads me to believe that there is some agreement in place or some loophole in the EU laws which allows FIFA rules to directly govern the conduct of clubs.
Furthermore, the ban on Chelsea is because it breached FIFA laws and regulations. It is not imposed to restrict movement of players, but a punishment (and a deterrence) for such conduct.
@BD Condell
Not sure how the sanctions would comply with EU Company and Labour Law to be honest.
However, isn’t the ‘freedom of movement’ principle already infringed to an extent by the implementation of transfer windows? It restricts the movement of players within Europe to two periods of time. It leads me to believe that there is some agreement in place or some loophole in the EU laws which allows FIFA rules to directly govern the conduct of clubs.
Furthermore, the ban on Chelsea is because it breached FIFA laws and regulations. It is not imposed to restrict movement of players, but a punishment (and a deterrence) for such conduct.
haha..chelsea
FIFA and UEFA bully boys at it again.Does football not come under business law?How can an orginisation like UEFA stop businesses like Chelsea from buying “stock” in for their business?Once again football is going above and beyond the powers that it legally has.If Chelsea took football to the european courts then football would be hammered AGAIN like it has been several times contesting the Bosman ruling and the Webster ruling!!! Its pathetic arguement for seeing itself above european business law is that its a “special case”.More like a nut case!!! As for the court of arbitration for sport i personally think it should be disbanded as all this place does is back up the illegal rulings that UEFA or FIFA make.Its their puppet and would be destroyed in the real european courts over their “yes men”rulings which are blatantly illegal.If FIFA and UEFA continue to pursue this,which they will cos they are power hungry maniacs,then i can see a day where Chelsea,Man Utd,Barca Etc leave the party tourney organisers of UEFA and hire someone else to host the tournaments.These clubs are wealthy and can organise their own games no problem and set up their own tourneys if there are enough of them.I would love to see this happen as these clubs could easily hire a company to organise these tournaments.It wouldn’t have the UEFA tag with it but for me thats a blessing,cos as long as its got big teams in it then people wont care who organises it.Either way would be better than have UEFA do it.Its like watching a slow car crash with UEFA and if they keep pursuing these illegal decisions then they are making a huge rod for their own back which given time may just break..I for one hope to god it does.
How the hell could Lenz FC could manage a contract with a minor “kid less than 16″ which corrupt FIFA could indicate Chelsea of inducement. A red herring if you ask me. It allows the likes of Platini to pursue with their sinister plot against EPL clubs.