Professional football players at home and abroad are regularly confronted with overdue payments. For example, the football club/employer runs into financial difficulties and has not paid the football player’s wages for several months. What are the possibilities of one football player in such a situation?
Overdue payments
Firstly, the football player has the option to contact the club via a specific FIFA procedure. Article 12bis RSTP stipulates that FIFA can impose a sanction on a club if it fails to meet its payment obligations to the football player for more than 30 days.
It is important that the football player must give the club written notice of default before initiating this procedure. The club then has 10 days to make the necessary payments.
If it turns out that the club does not make the payment after this period of 10 days, FIFA can impose a sanction. Such sanction may include a warning, a fine or even a suspension from registering new players. FIFA recently also introduced one website launched that reflects these suspensions.
Unilateral contract termination by football player
In certain cases, the football player also has the option to unilaterally terminate his contract. The football player must have a valid reason for this. The termination must comply with the conditions of Article 14bis of the FIFA RSTP.
Article 14bis FIFA RSTP states that if a club does not pay a football player at least two months’ wages, the player has a valid reason to unilaterally terminate his employment contract. He must again give notice of default to the club in writing. The club then has 15 days to pay out the fees due. If the club does not make the payments, the football player can unilaterally terminate the contract. This unilateral termination is always seen as a serious breach of contract on the part of the club.
Compensation for the football player
In the event of such a unilateral contract termination, the player is always entitled to compensation in accordance with Article 17 RSTP.
Firstly, the football player is entitled to the outstanding salaries relating to the period before his unilateral contract termination.
In addition, an additional compensation will have to be paid by the club to the football player. The magnitude of this additional compensation is determined on the basis of Article 17, §1 of the FIFA RSTP. To do this, it will first be checked whether there is a mutual agreement between the football player and the club that provides compensation for such situations of breach of contract. If a mutual agreement exists, it will be applied.
In the absence of such an agreement, a distinction is made:
- a player does not enter into a new employment contract with a new club;
- a player does sign a new contract with another club.
If the football player does not sign a new employment contract with another club, or does so after the expiry of the old contract, he is entitled to compensation estimated at the residual value of the broken contract. In the other case, he will be entitled to compensation consisting of the residual value of his terminated contract, minus the value of the new employment contract for the remaining duration of the old contract.
In addition, the football player will be entitled to additional (damage) compensation of three months’ wages. In extreme circumstances this can even amount to six months’ wages. However, the compensation has an absolute limit, being the residual value of the broken contract.
Further questions? Do not hesitate to contact us on 09/334.94.70, via contact form or via sport@everest-law.be.