We constantly witness how newspapers explore -on an almost daily basis- the possibility of CESC using the infamous article 17 of FIFA’s Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players. I will thus try to clear out what that article means and how it might be used by a player.
Firstly, it needs to be said that this is not a player’s “right”, but a possibility. Therefore, the duty of the player is to abide by his contract or, if the parties agreed on a buyout clause, to pay it in order to -in a way- “respect” the contract.
Other than that, it is deemed a unilateral breach of contract without just cause. This is what the last CAS awards have implied, in the Matuzalem and most recently El Hadary cases.
Once this has been established, it needs to be pointed out that in order to avoid sporting sanctions when ending his contract, a player must wait for three years since he signed it (if he was younger than 28 at that moment) or two years (if he was older). The aforementioned years are the so-called “protected period”.
But sporting sanctions cannot only be imposed for breaching the contract before those timeframes have expired, they can also be imposed if the decision of the player is not notified during the fifteen days following the last match of the season. For example, CESC could not avoid those sporting sanctions now, because that timeframe has passed. Those disciplinary measures are not clearly defined in the Regulations, but allegedly they would be the same as for ending the contract in the “protected period”, that is, a four-month suspension (effectively, during the season, not during holydays…).
Apart from the sanctions, a claim for damages could also take place. It has been said and written that this would be similar to Webster’s ruling, where the player only had to pay the remaining part of his contract, but it seems that Matuzalem’s ruling –where other items were taken into account- has been forgotten. Therefore, the analysis should be case by case, and it cannot be established that a concrete amount of damages would be assigned, as is being said. There are several different circumstances to value the compensation due, one of them the relevant contracts in the former and new clubs (this last factor is now unknown, so one cannot easily declare which compensation will be owed in case article 17 is used), the remaining years of the contract (in CESC’s case, several), etc.
To sum up, while the transfer world is mainly journalistic, when dealing with art. 17 we must stick to the legal aspects and one should know well what one’s talking about and avoid making juridical-fiction…
Juan de Dios Crespo - Lawyer specialized in Sports Law and member of IUSPORT’s Counsel of Advisors.