BackFIFA bans Barcelona from hiring until 2016 on underage recruits
Barcelona says it will appeal the sanction at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, a tribunal in Lausanne, Switzerland
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Madrid: Soccer ruling body FIFA upheld a ban on Barcelona signing players after the Spanish club brought foreign athletes younger than 18 to the academy that trained Lionel Messi.
Barcelona won’t be able to register new players for two complete trading windows, Zurich-based FIFA said in an e-mailed statement. That means it won’t be able to hire again until 1 January, 2016, halfway through next season. The infringements occurred between 2009 and 2013.
Barcelona said in a separate statement it will appeal the sanction at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, a tribunal in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In April, FIFA had suspended the ban pending the appeal, allowing Barcelona to hire striker Luis Suarez from Liverpool and Thomas Vermaelen from Arsenal. It has spent €153 million ($203 million) on six players in the current off-season, according to transfermarkt.com.
Also today, FIFA upheld a fine of 450,000 Swiss francs ($493,600) for Barcelona and 500,000 Swiss francs for the Spanish soccer federation, which authorized the registration of the underage academy recruits.
Under FIFA rules, soccer clubs can only field minors from another continent if their parents are living in the same country for reasons not linked to soccer. In February 2013, Barcelona said FIFA ordered it to stop fielding six foreign players under the age of 18.
South Korea’s Lee Seung Woo, then 15, and Cameroon’s Patrice Sousia, then in an under-13 category, were among the six who stopped playing, a club official said at the time. The six were at Barcelona’s La Masia, or Farmhouse, school, which provides education and full board along with soccer coaching, the official said.
About one-third of the 72 children at the Barcelona academy are from outside Spain. The school developed Messi, now 27, among other players who helped Barcelona win three of its four Champions League titles since 2006. Messi, FIFA’s four-time world player of the year, moved there from Argentina at age 13. BLOOMBERG
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