EFAA publishes Position Paper

In light of FIFA’s regulatory process on the football agent profession, EFAA sent out a position paper to its members and football agents worldwide. You can read the contents of the paper here:

The European Football Agents Association (EFAA) is the world’s largest representative body of football agents within professional football, with a membership base consisting of 14 national agent associations and over 1,000 professionally-organized agents worldwide. EFAA is a recognized stakeholder/sports entity by the European Commission, while it maintains working relationships with other key stakeholders in professional football. Furthermore, our members play an integral role in national football governance structures and institutions. Several members are officially-recognized stakeholders before their respective national football associations and governing bodies, consulting, negotiating, and participating in committees that govern and regulate the sport within the territory and the activities of agents in particular. EFAA representatives have participated in numerous conferences, panels, and EU working papers throughout our 14 years of existence, providing important knowledge and insight into the football agent profession.

Over the past months, FIFA has undergone a regulatory review with the intent of replacing the current Regulations on Working with Intermediaries (RWI) with a new body of rules to govern the football agent profession. In light of the current process and in its current form, EFAA stresses the fact that we do not accept these new draft regulations. We do, however, support the intention behind a new body of rules, as the current RWI framework in many ways negatively impacts the health of international football. We have done everything we can to take part—within an official capacity—in this regulatory process, as we are certain that EFAA has the knowledge and experience necessary to assist FIFA in developing a new body of rules that are supportive of not just the agent profession, but protect contractual stability, transparency, competitive balance, and the best interests of football stakeholders worldwide. The health of the industry reflects upon the health of our profession, and consequently, we want to do everything we can to create a better footballing world for all parties involved.

We repeatedly expressed our interest to FIFA in having an official consultation in order to share the perspectives of our members and engage in fruitful discourse that highlights the inner-workings of the agent business. At the center of this desire to engage in proper consultation is the necessity of highlighting the interests of all football agents, including the small to medium-sized football agents and those operating in football markets outside of Europe. To our dismay and frustration, FIFA refused our offer to provide constructive feedback in an official capacity; in fact, they never invited us to provide input in an official, consultative capacity throughout their entire regulatory campaign. This has unfortunately put us in a difficult position, where we must take stronger action to ensure that the interests of football agents worldwide are heard and respected.

As the draft regulations are now, we believe that FIFA’s envisaged agent regulations breach EU competition law. The specificity of sport creates justifications for autonomous regulatory powers within the sporting sector, but only if these actions/regulations are proportionate and serve a legitimate aim. The current working draft of the regulations FIFA intends to impose is based on a unilateral view with disproportionate measures. Agents and lawyers alike fear that the regulations will create vast negative consequences for the football industry in its entirety. EFAA has sought out independent legal advice from a leading expert on EU competition law with a proven track record of cases dealing with limiting the regulatory powers of sports governing bodies. We selected him because of his work in the groundbreaking ISU case, which dealt with sports governing bodies and their limitations in developing policy due to competition law restrictions.

We believe that, as the new regulations are a breach of EU competition law and the old regulations will lose their force when new regulations are implemented, there will be a situation in which agents fall back on EU-law and national law. We are currently involved in a structured dialogue with the European Commission about this matter. We will remain in consultation with national football associations and will inform national anti-competition law authorities in EU Member States as to the potential consequences of these draft regulations and why they must be blocked. We are open to negotiate with relevant stakeholders at the continental or global level to define new regulations that are acceptable for everyone.

EFAA’s members are aligned in this perspective, and we speak with one global voice standing together against FIFA’s draft regulations. We have acted in line with the concluding points of our General Assembly meeting of 13 February 2020 in Zurich. As a supranational body, we are working with our members and national authorities in supporting them to take legal action against FIFA, and we are supporting actions already undertaken. We are furthermore coordinating actions amongst our members globally. We have informed FIFA numerous times that we will only engage in consultation if we are accepted as official stakeholders, and as this request has been continuously ignored, we have not held any meetings with FIFA nor intend to engage in discussion.

Until FIFA takes our profession seriously, the only way forward is to proceed with legal action. The draft regulations will be disastrous for the industry as a whole, and we cannot allow these rules to be imposed to the detriment of professional football worldwide.

Sincerely,

The EFAA Board