Lausanne (AFP)

Fifa is aiming for the adoption "by the summer of 2021" of a panoply of rules governing the transfers of players by reinstating a license for agents, capping their commissions and limiting their conflicts of interest, she said. announced Thursday.

Started in 2018, this project with heavy financial implications should result in a vote by the Congress of the football body "before the summer", for entry into force "in September 2021", detailed during a videoconference the director Fifa legal officer, Emilio Garcia.

Fifa, which insists on wanting to "improve transparency and protect players", wants to return to the deregulation of the transfer market completed by the removal in 2015 of the player's agent license.

A measure carried by his ex-boss Sepp Blatter, since swept away by scandals.

Faced with the proliferation of intermediaries with varying skills, it is a question of re-establishing a license to practice, subject to an initial examination organized by Fifa then annual training "credits".

Candidates must take professional insurance and never have been convicted of corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, sexual abuse or harassment.

In addition, their commissions will be capped at 6% of the total amount of the salary contracted by the player, or 10% of the transfer amount if the agent is paid by the selling club.

The goal is to avoid arrangements such as the transfer of Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United in 2016, for which his agent Mino Raiola had received 49 million euros from the three cumulative parties, according to the revelations of Football Leaks.

The subject promises to be explosive and as early as last year, the Football Agents Forum (FAF) chaired by Mr. Raiola had threatened Fifa to challenge in court any capping of these commissions, seeing it as a violation of freedom. competition.

"Sometimes, the big numbers can lead agents not to bring the best interests of their clients", justified James Kitching, director of football regulation, while Emilio Garcia judged the proposals "in accordance with Swiss law and to European law ".

In addition, the football body intends to limit opaque financial flows by passing transactions related to transfers through a "clearing house" housed within it, and will create a body to settle "disputes of international dimension".

Finally, Fifa wants to limit conflicts of interest by prohibiting "triple representation", a practice illustrated by the transfer of Paul Pogba and which allowed the agent to be paid both by the player, the selling club and the buyer's club.

However, it leaves the "double representation" by the same intermediary of a player and a club, strongly criticized by certain players including the Swiss sports management company Sport7, which has been calling since 2017 for the abolition of this practice and has even asked the International Olympic Committee to suspend Gianni Infantino, the boss of Fifa, as long as he does not act in this direction.

"The reform is a cloud of smoke if it does not remove this connivance between clubs and agents", which harms players and promotes a cascade of criminal offenses - "retrocommissions, money laundering and tax evasion", explained Tuesday to AFP Me Philippe Renz, Sport7's lawyer.

© 2020 AFP