By: David Kyei

Date: 18-07-11

The financial woes of Kotoko at the time when money is needed by the Dr. K. K Sarpong administration to recruit quality players for the upcoming season has been worsened by a directive by world football governing body, FIFA for Kotoko to cough out €30,000 to FC Saturn of Russia.

The money is in respect of a refund of payment of Solidarity Mechanism that FC Saturn paid on the behalf of Kotoko when Shilla Illiasu was transferred to them in 2006.

Per Articles 20 and 21 of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players which became operational in September 2001, Kotoko was supposed to have paid that amount to all the clubs Shilla played before joining Kotoko, but the management at that time defaulted payment.

The clubs that were supposed to have benefitted however made a petition to FIFA. However, FC Saturn was so much impressed with the performance of Shilla after the Germany 2006 World Cup that, they did not want to wait for the case to be ruled on before getting the chance to use the player and also not wanting to infringe on sections of Russian Football Federation’s regulations that forbids teams to engage in player transfer brouhaha decided to pay off the clubs.

According to their petition sheet as cited, they did that with the understanding receiving a re-imbursement from Kotoko, but after waiting for three years, they sent in a petition to that effect in 2009.

The case has pended before the FIFA Player status committee for all that while till a single judge sat and ruled last week that Kotoko pay the money to FC Saturn within thirty days of the ruling or face harsher sanctions.

According to the ruling, if Kotoko is unable to pay the that amount before the first week of the month of August, they would be liable to 5% interest per annum and also lose some privileges at FIFA.

The following is the sections of the FIFA regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players as culled from the FIFA website:

TRAINING COMPENSATION AND SOLIDARITY MECHANISM

Article 20 Training compensation

Training compensation shall be paid to a player’s training club(s):

 (1) when a player signs his first contract as a professional and

(2) each time a professional is transferred until the end of the season of his 23rd birthday.

The obligation to pay training compensation arises whether the transfer takes place during or at the end of the player’s contract. The provisions concerning training compensation are set out in Annexe 4 of these regulations.

Article 21 Solidarity mechanism

If a professional is transferred before the expiry of his contract, any club that has contributed to his education and training shall receive a proportion of the compensation paid to his former club (solidarity contribution). The provisions concerning solidarity contributions are set out in Annexe 5 of these regulations.

ANNEXE 4

TRAINING COMPENSATION

Article 1 Objective

1.      A player’s training and education takes place between the ages of 12 and 23. Training compensation shall be payable, as a general rule, up to the age of 23 for training incurred up to the age of 21, unless it is evident that a player has already terminated his training period before the age of 21.

In the latter case, training compensation shall be payable until the end of the season in which the player reaches the age of 23, but the calculation of the amount payable shall be based on the years between the age of 12 and the age when it is established that the player actually completed his training.

2.      The obligation to pay training compensation is without prejudice to any obligation to pay compensation for breach of contract.

Article 2 Payment of training compensation

1.Training compensation is due when:

i) a player is registered for the fi rst time as a professional;

or

ii) a professional is transferred between clubs of two different associations (whether during or at the end of his contract) before the end of the season of his 23rd birthday.

2.Training compensation is not due if:

i) the former club terminates the player’s contract without just  cause (without prejudice to the rights of the previous clubs);

or

ii) the player is transferred to a category 4 club;

or

iii) a professional reacquires amateur status on being transferred.

Article 3 Responsibility to pay training compensation

1. On registering as a professional for the first time, the club with which the player is registered is responsible for paying training compensation within 30 days of registration to every club with which the player has previously been registered (in accordance with the players’ career history as provided in the player passport) and that has contributed

to his training starting from the season of his 12th birthday. The amount payable is calculated on a pro rata basis according to the period of training that the player spent with each club. In the case of subsequent transfers of the professional, training compensation will only be owed to his former club for the time he was effectively trained by that club.

3.      In both of the above cases, the deadline for payment of training compensation is 30 days following the registration of the professional with the new association.

If a link between the professional and any of the clubs that trained him cannot be established, or if those clubs do not make themselves known within 18 months of the player’s first registration as a professional, the training compensation shall be paid to the

association(s) of the country (or countries) where the professional was trained. This  compensation shall be reserved for youth football development programmes at the association(s) in question.

Article 4 Training costs

1.      In order to calculate the compensation due for training and education costs, associations are instructed to divide their clubs into a maximum of four categories in accordance with the clubs’ fi nancial investment in training players. The training costs are set for each category and correspond to the amount needed to train one player for one year multiplied by an average “player factor”, which is the ratio of players who need to be trained to produce one professional player.

2. The training costs, which are established on a confederation basis for each category of club, as well as the categorisation of clubs for each association, are published on the FIFA website (www.FIFA.com).They are updated at the end of every calendar year.

Article 5 Calculation of training compensation

1.      As a general rule, to calculate the training compensation due to a player’s former club(s), it is necessary to take the costs that would have been incurred by the new club if it had trained the player itself.

2. Accordingly, the fi rst time a player registers as a professional, the training compensation payable is calculated by taking the training costs of the new club multiplied by the number of years of Training, in principle from the season of the player’s 12th birthday to the season of his 21st birthday. In the case of subsequent transfers, training compensation is calculated based on the training costs of

the new club multiplied by the number of years of training with the former club.

3. To ensure that training compensation for very young players is not set at unreasonably high levels, the training costs for players for the seasons between their 12th and 15th birthdays (i.e. four seasons) shall be based on the training and education costs of category 4 clubs.

4. The Dispute Resolution Chamber may review disputes concerning the amount of training compensation payable and shall have discretion to adjust this amount if it is clearly disproportionate to the case under review.

ANNEXE 5

SOLIDARITY MECHANISM

Article 1 Solidarity contribution

If a professional moves during the course of a contract, 5% of any compensation, not including training compensation paid to his former club, shall be deducted from the total amount of this compensation and distributed by the new club as a solidarity contribution to the club(s) involved in his training and education over the years.

This solidarity contribution refl ects the number of years (calculated pro rata if less than one year) he was registered with the relevant club(s) between the seasons of his 12th and 23rd birthdays, as follows:

– Season of 12th birthday: 5% (i.e. 0.25% of total compensation);

– Season of 13th birthday: 5% (i.e. 0.25% of total compensation);

– Season of 14th birthday: 5% (i.e. 0.25% of total compensation);

– Season of 15th birthday: 5% (i.e. 0.25% of total compensation);

– Season of 16th birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 17th birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 18th birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 19th birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 20th birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 21st birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 22nd birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation);

– Season of 23rd birthday: 10% (i.e. 0.5% of total compensation).

Article 2 Payment procedure

1.      The new club shall pay the solidarity contribution to the training club(s) pursuant to the above provisions no later than 30 days after the player’s registration or, in case of contingent payments, 30 days after the date of such payments.

2.      It is the responsibility of the new club to calculate the amount of the solidarity contribution and to distribute it in accordance with the player’s career history as provided in the player passport. The player shall,  if necessary, assist the new club in discharging this obligation.

3. If a link between the professional and any of the clubs that trained  him cannot be established within 18 months of his transfer, the solidarity contribution shall be paid to the association(s) of the country (or countries) where the professional was trained. This

solidarity contribution shall be reserved for youth football development programmes in the association(s) in question.

4. The Disciplinary Committee may impose disciplinary measures on clubs that do not observe the obligations set out in this annexe.