Arsenal have been handed a £34,000 fine by FIFA and warned about future conduct after we inserted sell-on clauses that were found to give us influence over other clubs.
Football’s governing body specifically investigated the 2018 deals that saw Joel Campbell move to Italian side Frosinone and Chuba Akpom to Greek side PAOK. In both instances, variable sell-on rates were agreed that made it less attractive for the players to be sold back to British clubs.
The Associated Press reports that we engineered deals where we’d be eligible for 40% of a transfer fee paid by a British club for Akpom compared to 30% from any other team. For Campbell, the figures were 30% and 25% respectively.
Fifa didn’t just have a problem with the existence of the clauses but also the fact we failed to declare them in the Transfer Matching System which is used to complete deals.
Fifa disciplinary committee member Thomas Hollerer wrote: “The committee considers that, by the mere existence of these clauses, Frosinone and PAOK FC are influenced by Arsenal in employment and transfer-related matters.
“The committee considers that the relevant clauses undoubtedly grant Arsenal the ability to influence in employment and transfer-related matters the independence, policies and the performance of PAOK FC and Frosinone’s teams.
“It is evident that in a scenario in which PAOK FC and/or Frosinone receive two similar and/or identical offers for the transfer of the relevant players, one being from a club in the United Kingdom and the other one coming from a club outside the United Kingdom.
“PAOK FC and Frosinone would be more inclined to accept the offer coming from the club outside the United Kingdom, as it would make the operation most profitable from a purely financial point of view.”
For what it’s worth, the club insists we’ve not done anything wrong and said the FA and Premier League were satisfied there was no breach of third-party influence rules.
While the fine is pretty trivial the warning that “should such infringements occur again in the future, the committee would be left with no other option than to impose harsher sanctions” is less so.
Can you imagine if we picked up a transfer ban? That would be disastrous right now.
That said, the idea of Raul Sanllehi grovelling down the phone to Arsene Wenger, now Fifa’s head of global football, is pretty amusing.
Incidentally, Joel Campbell completed a permanent move from Frosinone to Mexican side Leon, with whom he’s been playing on loan, on Thursday. Transfermarkt claim the deal was worth around £2 million.
The reasons for fine does look reasonable but then british clubs do pay a lot more than other clubs.
I can see the logic, but is it fundamentally different from demanding a higher fee from a local rival/domestic club than a foreign club? Doesn’t seem a nefarious business practice at all.
It sounds quite trivial, but I guess it limits the players options a little with a future transfer. I wonder if Arsene was involved at all before departing?
The difference, in FIFA’s thinking, is extremely significant and I agree. Of course, Arsenal can chose not to sell a player to a domestic rival, or to demand a higher price from a domestic rival than from a foreign club. But once Arsenal sell a player to another club, we have no right to influence the new club’s decisions on whether and to whom their player–not our player any more–should be sold. This particular example doesn’t look so terrible, I agree. But think about all the ways the big clubs can effectively control clubs in smaller leagues (even pretty big… Read more »
It’s different because we are a third party in this instance.
Great going there FIFA. I have some other clubs that may or may not use shady means to transfers. I don’t want any trouble for telling you who they are but at all 3 wear blue are owned by billionaires and have you in their pockets.
Who’s the third blue?
Fifa can f**k off. They are the biggest bunch of hypocritical c**ts the world has ever seen. How they even have the cheek to judge our dealings is beyond me. People in glass houses? Wankbaskets.
Who would down vote this?!
Soft heads like Snagger, who don’t like naughty swear words. It upsets their bowel movement and leaves them requiring an immediate Safe Place and a bowl of lentil soup.
What is also funny is that Kroenke is still making money from Wenger’s deals, while his incompetent board are cosying up to shady agents and costing the club millions as a result of their shambolic management of transfers and contracts.
I’ve seen this comment a lot in recent times but I’d love to know who these shady agents we’re supposedly costing up to are? According to the latest financials we’ve paid less in agent fees than 7 other clubs, including Everton, for comparison, in the PL. Most of our recent transfer business has been fairly understandable – Pepe, Martinelli, etc have all been relatively successful buys, and they only Relative failure had been Luiz but even that is in the context of it being an unplanned signing in the light of Koscielny refusing to play. The two times we have… Read more »
I’ve seen this comment a lot in recent times but I’d love to know who these shady agents we’re supposedly costing up to are? According to the latest financials we’ve paid less in agent fees than 7 other clubs, including Everton, for comparison, in the PL. Most of our recent transfer business has been fairly understandable – Pepe, Martinelli, etc have all been relatively successful buys, and the only Relative failure had been Luiz but even that is in the context of it being an unplanned signing in the light of Koscielny refusing to play. The two times we have… Read more »
The blog has had a few lines about “super agent” Kia and so there have been a few comments like LEFT08’s.
If you want to talk about incompetent let’s look at Sanchez/Mhkytarian, Ozil, Diaby etc etc. All under Wenger’s careful eye
That’s fucking rich coming from FIFA. The most ethnically and morally corrupt federation of hypocritical cunts since the Ancient Romans. “Don’t do as we do, do as we say.” Fuck off.
Doesn’t strike me as particularly sister, but If I were Chuba and trying to get back to England I’d be pretty angry about this.
Plenty of clubs do far worse but we’re Arsenal, we’ve got to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Now FIFA, go investigate Bayern – during their unveiling of Sané Rummenigge explicitly stated their goal is to gather the best German players at the club. Pretty sure expressing a preference based on citizenship or national origin is against multiple labor laws.