BEVERLY HILLS, July 04, (THEWILL) – FIFA has fined the Gunners £34,000 for inserting sell-on clauses in the sale and transfer of players and warned that it could slam the London club with stricter penalties in the future over the development.
FIFA’s disciplinary committee found Arsenal guilty of violating rules for going into contracts that enabled it to influence other clubs and also for not declaring data in its Transfer Matching System.
FIFA opened investigations into the sell-on clauses in January which makes Arsenal receive a bigger cut when it trades a player to a UK club and gets less when it trades to a club outside the UK.
In the case of Akpom, Arsenal will get 40 percent of the transfer fee if he moves to a British club and only 30 percent if he goes elsewhere. The gunners would receive 30 percent of any fee if Campbell was sold in the UK but will get only 25 percent if he goes elsewhere.
“The committee considers that, by the mere existence of these clauses, Frosinone and PAOK FC are influenced by Arsenal in employment and transfer-related matters,” FIFA disciplinary committee member, Thomas Hollerer, wrote in the verdict document.
He added: “The committee considers that the relevant clauses undoubtedly grant Arsenal the ability to influence in employment and transfer-related matters the independence, policies and the performance of PAOK FC and Frosinone’s teams.
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“It is evident that in a scenario in which PAOK FC and/or Frosinone receive two similar and/or identical offers for the transfer of the relevant players, one being from a club in the United Kingdom and the other one coming from a club outside the United Kingdom, PAOK FC and Frosinone would be more inclined to accept the offer coming from the club outside the United Kingdom, as it would make the operation most profitable from a purely financial point of view.”
The Gunners, in their defence, argued that both the Premier League and the FA were satisfied with their conduct.
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