Fifa has issued recommendations - Walter Bieri / AP / SIPA

Fifa on Monday made a number of recommendations to professional clubs aimed at overcoming the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has completely frozen world football. The highest body of the discipline thus advised the leaders to find wage agreements with the footballers to relieve the clubs weakened by the health crisis and to extend the contracts beyond June 30 to be able to end the season, has we learned from sources close to the international federation.

In a set of guidelines established in agreement with the confederations, Fifa, wanting to be "flexible", also recommended to postpone the opening of the transfer market until the current season is not over. Faced with the coronavirus pandemic which has had "a major impact" on club revenues, football "must find just and fair solutions [...] with the objective of protecting jobs," said Fifa.

Extend contracts, including loans

The Zurich-based body, which set up a working group on the consequences of the coronavirus crisis on March 18, "strongly encourages clubs and players" to work together to find agreements and solutions during the suspension of competitions national and international.

Fifa suggests studying what measures are possible, "including government measures" to support clubs and players, whether wages "be delayed or reduced" and whether an insurance system may apply. It is also suggested that players' contracts, which include loans, "be extended to the end of the current season", in order to preserve "sporting integrity and stability".

Towards a transfer of the transfer window

These Fifa directives are only recommendations because it is the national law, in particular the labor law which applies in each State. But these instructions "are important and were expected to the extent that Fifa has moral authority," said a source close to the discussions.

Regarding the transfer window which was to open this summer, Fifa will "push the transfer windows so that they fall between the end of the current season and the start of the next one."

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