FIFA Faces Setback as London Ruling Stalls Football Agent Fee Caps

FIFA, faced a legal setback in London as its plans to implement the FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR) were thwarted. The FFAR aimed to regulate football player agents and impose caps on the fees and commissions they earn.

This ruling, lost to a coalition of agents and player representation firms, including CAA Base, Wasserman, Stellar, and ARETÉ, has cast doubt on the future of the regulation plans. Similar legal battles are underway across Europe, with successful blocks recorded in Germany and Spain. It’s worth noting that FIFA did secure a favourable ruling in July at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The proposed regulations sought to introduce a cap on the size of an agent’s fee from any transfer and restrict the frequency of payments received by agents. FIFA intended to cap agent earnings at a maximum of 10% of transfer fees when acting for the selling club. Additionally, the governing body aimed to limit agents to taking 3% of a player’s salary when earnings exceeded US$200,000 per year, or 5% for players earning up to US$200,000. Other measures included prohibiting agents from representing both the buying and selling clubs in a transfer and mandating that all fees be processed through FIFA’s Paris-based financial clearing house.

The European Football Agents Association celebrated the tribunal’s decision, stating, “Today we heard the results of the English football agents’ case in the FA Rule K arbitration proceedings.”

“We are happy to hear that the (tribunal) has sided with the agents and blocked the implementation of the FFAR. As our English friends so aptly put, these regulations were an attempt at using a sledgehammer to crack a nut – far overreaching and overstepping, beyond legitimate cause.”

The English Football Association (FA) responded to the ruling, declaring, “The FA Tribunal issued its award following the conclusion of proceedings, which declared that if the FA implements the Fee Cap and the Pro Rata Payment Rules in the NFAR, it will be in breach of the Competition Act 1988.

“The FA is considering the implications of the decision and will provide a further update as soon as it is able.”

Reports from the UK suggest that FIFA is contemplating an appeal. FIFA had previously asserted that the agent industry earned over US$600 million in commission from player transfers last year.

In a separate development, FIFA recently initiated two tender processes for media rights in sub-Saharan Africa. One process covers rights to the 2026 men’s FIFA World Cup, to be held in Mexico, the US, and Canada, while the other concerns rights for the women’s edition (WWC) in 2027, with host locations yet to be allocated.