Football's transfer market needs to be "seriously revised" with greater "clarity and transparency" required, says Fifa president Gianni Infantino. The Swiss-Italian also said he was against clubs "hoarding" players and suggested introducing squad limits. "The perception is that there is something strange happening with these transfers," Infantino said. "Several billion US dollars are moved in a window, so it's important that it happens in a clean way." It is common in England for clubs not to disclose transfer fees paid for players. Infantino added: "It is a transfer system which has been essentially developed back in 2000-2001. "After 15 years it is time to seriously revise it and bring in maybe a little bit more transparency and a little bit more clarity in terms of the rules." Many clubs sign talented young players only to immediately loan them out, with the majority seeing little opportunity with the first team before eventually being sold on. Infantino described the practice as "permitted" but added: "It doesn't feel right for a club to just hoard the best young players and then to park them left and right. It is not good for the development of the player or the club. "We have to work on squad size limits." I would take it further, but this would be a right move to get players to lesser clubs more cheaply.
I don't like the "little bit" part particularly. That suggests to me a token change so they can say that they've improved clarity without actually changing anything. What I would have liked to have seen is hardline rules put in place, not a tiny tweak here, a teensy tweak there. He's probably just talking for the sake of it.
I doubt that 'total transparency' will ever be achieved, but i'd love to see it. Including agents fees, bonus payments etc, etc, etc.
If FIFA poke the bear too much, let's remember they're dealing with a bunch of very wealthy billionaires. I'd imagine the top 50 teams in the world could come to an arrangement with a corporation such as BSKYB to rearrange the face of football and take the power away from FIFA. There's a change coming in football, there's too much money involved in football now to just continue the way it is, governed by a group of chumps who are proven to be corrupt from the ground up.
