Uefa urges end to ‘nonsense’ friendly matches in August

UEFA is poised to ask Fifa to scrap the August dates for friendlies in football’s international calendar.

An official announcement by Uefa president Michel Platini is expected today or tomorrow, but it is understood Europe’s 53 national football associations agreed to the proposal at a summit meeting in Limassol, Cyprus to discuss preferred changes to the calendar, which dictates when clubs must release their players for international duty.

European clubs have pressed Uefa and Fifa to drop August internationals, describing them as “nonsense” matches which disrupt preparations for their season.

National team coaches, including France’s Laurent Blanc, have also spoken out against the games, which allow squads barely 48 hours for preparations.

Uefa members concluded a two-day strategy session yesterday with the international calendar and structure of national team competitions top of their agenda.

However, associations would be happy to maintain the number of days players must report to national teams each year.

Uefa are understood to be ready to put a proposal to Fifa for 18 matches, in nine double-header fixture blocks, over each two-year cycle of qualification matches for a World Cup or European Championship.

Fifa is also consulting world football’s five other continental bodies before agreeing a calendar of international match dates from 2015-2018. However, Fifa can choose to remove August slots from the current schedule before it expires in 2014.

Meanwhile, players’ agents could face limits on the amounts they earn from transfers and clubs could be forced to reveal how much they pay them, according to plans from Fifa.

Marco Villiger, Fifa’s head of legal affairs, said the organisation wanted to ditch its system of licensing agents and bring in regulations governing transfers and agents’ conduct.

Fifa believes only 25-30 percent of international transfers are carried out by licensed agents, meaning the vast majority are brokered by agents operating under little or no regulation.

Transfers are big business and agents’ cuts can run into millions of dollars.

Since the 2010 World Cup, some 10,500 international transfers have taken place at a combined value of some $2.7 billion according to Fifa. “What you pay for with agents, it’s only access to the players,” Villiger told a news briefing in Brussels. “It is in the pockets of people who do not invest in football.”

Under plans backed by Fifa’s legal committee, licensing of agents would end, although agents would have to register with national associations. Agents would have to declare conflicts of interest and would not be allowed to command a fee for transfers of minors. Clubs would have to disclose payments and those payments could be limited.

“A fair amount could perhaps be two to three percent [of the transfer fee] or a cap of $2 million,” Villiger said, adding the obligation for clubs to reveal payments to agents could lead them to limit future spending.

The European Commission is due to host a meeting to include Fifa, Uefa and agents to discuss the matter in October. Villiger said legal experts it had consulted believed the new regulations would not conflict with European law and the plans could be put to a full Fifa congress next year.