UEFA Promises to Ban Third-Party Ownership

• ESPN FC, Friday, December 20, 2013 1:24 PM

UEFA President Michel Platini has vowed to ban third-party ownership, a practice that is commonplace in several countries with Brazil being the most prominent. Speaking after the UEFA Congress this week, Platini told reporters that Europe’s governing body has long planned to eradicate third-party ownership from Europe.

"What I can't understand is when players in Brazil and Argentina don't belong to a club but they belong to people instead,” Platini said. "It means that, instead of going into sport, the [transfer] money goes to people. That is not logical. It is not human that people should belong to other people who sell them off. We will make the law against that for the whole of UEFA. If FIFA does not take any measures, we will take them in Europe."

Third-party ownership involves a player’s transfer rights being owned either wholly or partly by a company or the player himself. It is already banned in several countries, including England, where the transfer of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano generated controversy in 2006.

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