Editor’s note: Rhys Lenarduzzi is a final semester Bachelor of Law (LL.B) and Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.) student, at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney, Australia. As a former professional athlete, then international sports agent and consultant, Rhys is interested in international sports law, policy and ethics. He is currently undertaking an internship at the T.M.C. Asser Institute with a focus on Transnational Sports Law.
As recently as September 2020, questions
were raised in the European Parliament on the non-application of training
compensation to women’s football. Whilst this blog will predominantly
consider potential inconsistencies in reasoning for and against training
compensation in men’s and women’s football, the questions before the Commission
were largely on the theme of disrespect and discrimination. Somewhat unfortunately, the questions raised were
side-stepped, with Ms Gabriel (Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth) simply stating
that: “The TFEU does not give the Commission the competence to interfere in the
internal organisation of an independent international organisation such as
FIFA.” This might be true in theory, though one might feel some degree of
uneasiness if privy to the Commission’s role in the 2001 FIFA regulatory
overhaul.
It is currently explicit in the regulations and
the commentary, that in women’s football, signing clubs are not required to
compensate training clubs for developing players, through the training
compensation mechanism that exists in men’s football. Though it is a
contentious comment and as will be expanded below, this may not have always
been the case.
At Article
20 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP),
one will find that the principles of training compensation shall not apply to
women’s football. Further, in FIFA’s
recently released Women’s Football Administrator Handbook
(the handbook), it states that disputes relating to training compensation are
limited for the moment to male players only.[1]
Regulations on solidarity contributions on the
other hand do apply to women’s football, but given transfer fees are not so
common, the use of the mechanism is not either. As an indication of how
uncommon the activation of the solidarity contribution mechanism in women’s
football might be, FIFA reported in the handbook just four claims with the
Players’ Status Department in 2016 (three claims involving the same player),
and zero since.[2]
That is in comparison to hundreds of claims made per season in men’s football,
where signing and owing clubs had not fulfilled their obligation to pay the
solidarity contribution.
Given
the aforementioned, this blog will largely focus on training compensation and
how it came to be the case that this mechanism, often presented as critical in
the context of men’s football, does not apply in women’s football. To do so, I
will first discuss the reasoning advanced in an unpublished CAS award, which one
may reasonably suspect played a fundamental role in shaping the current
exemption. I will then turn to FIFA’s timely response to the award and the
adoption of its Circular No. 1603. Finally, I will point out the disconnect in FIFA’s
decision to adopt two radically different approaches to the issue of training
compensation in male and female professional football. More...