TPO: ownership of players by third parties banned by FIFA as of 01/05/2015

The prohibition of TPO (the ownership of players by third parties) came into force on 01/05/2015. This decision was approved by the FIFA Executive Committee on 19/12/2014. "Existing agreements will continue to be valid until their expiry, and new contractual agreements between 01/01 and 30/04/2015 will be limited to one year in duration," stated the international federation.

TPO is defined as the "investment of a third party in the economic rights of professional football players, potentially in order to receive a portion of the value of future transfers of these players," stated FIFA.

The FIFA Executive Committee decided to ban TPO, after a transition period, at its meeting on 25 and 26/09/2014 in Zurich (SUI). "We took the strong decision to ban the ownership of players by third parties. But it can not be banned immediately, there will be a transition period," stated Joseph Blatter, president of FIFA on 26/09/2014. "We are currently investigating the number of transfer periods for this transition, it will be six (3 years) or eight (4 years)," stated Jerome Valcke, the FIFA…