18.09.2020
15:08
The body announced that, after a vote among the member federations, new exceptions were approved
September 18, 2020 Share on FacebookShare Share on TwitterTweet Share on WhatsAppShare
FIFA changed the regulations for those players who want to change their teams, such is the case of Munir El Haddadi (Friedemann Vogel- Reuters)
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The 70th edition of the FIFA Annual Congress was held remotely for the first time in history due to the complications generated by the coronavirus pandemic. Through a videoconference, representatives of the 211 member federations participated in the event in which President Gianni Infantino spoke from Zurich to give an account of the organization's current affairs.
At the meeting, it was not only explained how the health situation around Covid-19 affected football and competition in the different countries, but also the modifications that were made to the Regulations for the Application of the Statutes were reported in order to include new provisions on the exceptions to the general prohibition that prevents footballers from changing federations , that is, the conditions that must be met to play for two different teams throughout the career.
The new regulations, approved by the electronic vote of the vast majority of federations, establishes that a footballer who has already played for a certain National Team in a match in an official international competition may request to change to another if he meets certain conditions. Some of them are
-At the time you played your first official competition match with your current federation of any category and soccer discipline, you already possessed the nationality of the federation you wish to represent;
– At the time of playing his last official competition match of any football discipline with his current federation, he had not yet turned 21 ;
-Play a maximum of three “A” international matches of any football discipline with his current federation, both in official and unofficial competition;
– At least three years have passed since you played the last “A” international match of any football discipline with your current federation, both in official and unofficial competition; and
– He has never participated in any “A” international matches in the final phase of a FIFA World Cup or a confederation tournament.
FIFA held its annual congress remotely for the first time in history in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic (REUTERS / Arnd Wiegmann)
In summary, the circumstances that the player must meet must be: at the time of playing his first official match with his current Association (in any category or level), he must already have the nationality of the country he wishes to represent today. In addition, at the time of playing his last game with his current Federation, he should not have turned 21. The footballer who wants to play for another National Team, in addition, must not have played more than three games (between official and unofficial) with his current Federation and more than three years must have passed since he played his last meeting with his Association. The player must not have participated in a contest such as a FIFA World Cup or a confederation tournament (Eurocup, America's Cup, etc).
FIFA also establishes what would happen if the player wants to return to his original Federation. “The player who has been granted the change of federation, and who has not played any match of official or unofficial competition of any football discipline with his new federation may request the change of federation, that is, the return to his first federation as long as it still possesses the nationality of the country of said federation “, says the document released this Friday.
In Spain these new exceptions were closely followed as a result of the so-called Munir Case . The current Sevilla footballer played for just a few minutes with the Spanish senior team in 2014 in a qualifying match for the Eurocup and was never called up to be part of La Roja. When he wanted to join the Moroccan national team, the country of which he has nationality since his father was born there, he could not do so and lost the chance to play the 2018 World Cup in Russia. This situation even led him to resort to the CAS (Tribunal Arbitration for Sport With the new regulations, you can easily join the African team.
