Well, UEFA have spoken.

In response to media reports referring to the situation of Club Atlético de Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, UEFA would like to reiterate its position.

The integrity of sporting competition is a fundamental principle for UEFA.

Both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations contain clear provisions which strictly forbid any club to exert, or attempt to exert, any influence whatsoever over the players that another club may (or may not) field in a match.

It follows that any provision in a private contract between clubs which might function in such a way as to influence who a club fields in a match is null, void and unenforceable so far as UEFA is concerned.

Furthermore, any attempt to enforce such a provision would be a clear violation of both the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations and would therefore be sanctioned accordingly.

http://www.uefa.org/about-uefa/administration/news/newsid=2088774.html

Tbh, I don't know why this issue is only just coming up considering Courtois played against us in the Super Cup 2 years ago. Unless its only recently been inserted into his deal.


All this could possibly be avoided if we don't draw Athletico though. Draw in a few mins.

Well, as I mentioned before - in Germany it works without problems to have players play against their parent teams. It has been like that for I don't know how long, and no one ever complained.

Also, I'm trying to find it but I'm pretty sure UEFA said the exact opposite last year. Its actually interesting how they've worded it.

"....strictly forbid any club to exert, or attempt to exert, any influence whatsoever over the players that another club may (or may not) field in a match"

So then....does loaning Courtois in the first place to Athletico not influence who they field in a UEFA match?


For what its worth, I have absolutely no problem with Courtois playing against us if we do meet them. I just think its interesting that everyone's throwing a tantrum right now.

Art Morte wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:I think this rule forbidding loaned out players to feature against their parent club is terrible, and in fact a distortion of competition.

I obviously don#t think there's anything wrong with being able to loan or loan out players.
If you come to agreement to let another club have your player on a temporary basis, what's the problem?

But what can't be part of that agreement imo is restrictions on how to use the player.
Because then you give another club 3 great players, they can play against your competition but not against you?
Ridiculous.

For example, this thing with Cortouis that Atletico would have to pay Chelsea were he to feature in an potential tie between them is outrageous imo.
He's loaned out, he plays for Atletico, and that's it. If he saves a Hazard pen, well, tough luck.
UEFA should render such an agreement mute.

Nah, the English loan system, where you cannot face your parent club, is the way it should be. You have to be sure of impartiality.

It's a common rule in many of our institutions. A judge is disqualified to sit a case if the defendant is his sister. A government official is disqualified to decide on a grant application if the applier is his brother's company. A police officer is disqualified from conducting an investigation of which outcome will have an effect on him. You don't have to witness against your spouse and a doctor shouldn't operate on a family member. It's just common sense that when there's a conflict of interest or even the possibility of it, you shouldn't be involved.

Those often involve blood or lawful relationships on personal levels though. I'm not quite sure saying that an employee of a football club can't play against his employers strictly because of the possibility of him affecting their business is of parallel importance. Courtois and Chelsea have a professional relationship, which for me, is a different monster considering he is not personally attached to them. He has no blood relationship to Chelsea nor is it his spouse.

That said, the BPL has this rule in place strictly for business reasons, which honestly is what is expected. Players as good as Courtois can affect their bottom line and Chelsea knows it. It's capitalism at work, you could say and it's further evidence of how much of a business a football club has become.

Found it.

19/07/13 - UEFA statement on Elfsborg's Bangura playing against his parent club Celtic in the CL qualifying round.




At least be consistent.

Well, looks like they decided to revise the rules. Stuff like that happens.

Here's the link to the current ruling: http://www.uefa.org/about-uefa/administration/news/newsid=2088774.html

Looks like that integrity thing was approved on 27 March 2014: http://www.uefa.org/about-uefa/organisation/congress/news/newsid=2078383.html

Here's the resolution in full: http://www.uefa.org/MultimediaFiles/Download/uefaorg/MatchFixPrev/02/07/89/27/2078927_DOWNLOAD.pdf

By the way, it is possible that the PL loan system might need to be revised concerning clauses that players can't play against their parent teams now as the English FA signed that resolution, too.

Blue Barrett wrote:
For what its worth, I have absolutely no problem with Courtois playing against us if we do meet them. I just think its interesting that everyone's throwing a tantrum right now.

I don't mean to throw a tantrum, in fact I until recently I didn't know about the premier league rule of loaned players not being allowed to play against their parent club, and to be honest I'm just really surprised about it.
Because I'm used to it being a complete nonissue in the Bundesliga.
The players is loaned out, he play the season, or half a season, for another club and that's it.
No problems at all.
Players playing against their parent club, and scoring against them, is just normal.
And I don't see any problem at all, the comparisons to relatives not testifying in a trial etc are not appropriate imo.

I mean it's similar to when a player is known to move to another club at the end of the season.
For example, Lewandowski of course will feature against us on Saturday, you could say there's a conflict of interest (more so of course if actually something like CL qualification were at stake).

But that means underestimating the integrity of players, imo. And if indeed a situation were to arise where i.e. a player contributing could mean hurting his future club and himself, it would be within the estimation of the manager not to play him, if he thinks the player is too torn to perform as usual.

The Chelsea thing is tricky, as indeed Courtois is not FORBIDDEN from playing, there just happens to be a contract clause between Chelsea and Atletico which activates extra payment in this case. So this is not dissimilar to other performance related bonuses in a way.
I don't want to imply this is clearly illegal or something.

I just think it would be a shame, and that's why I think clauses of such serious effect on competition should be regulated, which they maybe are.

Well, especially the money issue in the Courtois case has the look of match manipulation via money, and that is likely why this integrity resolution comes into play.

wow, looking at Transfermarkts transfer overview for Chelsea, the number of players they own and have loaned out is absolutely ridiculous, it's a farce.

They are allowed to because of the ridiculous loan system.

Been saying for years that the rules should change but doubt the governing bodies have the balls to do so.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:They are allowed to because of the ridiculous loan system.

Been saying for years that the rules should change but doubt the governing bodies have the balls to do so.

They've got something like 30 players loaned out from their first team squad lol.

I don't know exactly how your loan system works but I know it is absolutely RIDICULOUS these players are not allowed to play against their parent club I mean seriously, wtf

That is void if the player is not in the same league as the parent club. Remember Chelsea were trying to get Courtouis to not play against them in the Champions last year and it back fired.

It's actually void period. Doesn't matter if you're in the same league. It's unenforceable.

sportsczy wrote:It's actually void period. Doesn't matter if you're in the same league. It's unenforceable.

So wait, Everton could have just played Lukaku against Chelsea last season? Why didn't they do it then? How can you say it doesn't matter when it's a Premier League rule that is observed?

I guess you don't want to piss off the parent club when they're giving you a highly rated player for free for a year.

No it's not void in PL. They weren't allowed to play Lukaku against Chelsea just like we weren't allowed to play Moses.

Only void by UEFA in CL/EL.

Don't call me James wrote:No it's not void in PL. They weren't allowed to play Lukaku against Chelsea just like we weren't allowed to play Moses.

Only void by UEFA in CL/EL.

Exactly, it's in the Premier League regulation and of course it is enforcable - the player is not eligible for the game.

Thats because the club didn't fight the clause like Atleti did... they mutually agreed to go by the arrangement. But if the club that got loaned the player actually fought the arrangement, the player would be able to play... that's why Chelsea was upset at Atleti. Chelsea will never loan Atleti a player again (or at least for a long time).

Personally, i think that a definitive ruling should be made on whether such clauses are either allowed or not. No need to have such a grey area.

sportsczy wrote:Thats because the club didn't fight the clause like Atleti did... they mutually agreed to go by the arrangement. But if the club that got loaned the player actually fought the arrangement, the player would be able to play... that's why Chelsea was upset at Atleti. Chelsea will never loan Atleti a player again (or at least for a long time).

Personally, i think that a definitive ruling should be made on whether such clauses are either allowed or not. No need to have such a grey area.

It's not.

In the PL loaned players are not allowed to play against their parent club.

It's not a clause, it's a bonafied league wide rule lol, it's one of the things I was alluding to when I said the rules need to change.

windkick wrote:That is void if the player is not in the same league as the parent club. Remember Chelsea were trying to get Courtois to not play against them in the Champions last year and it back fired.

When did this happen? Chelsea were always willing to let Courtois play.

sportsczy wrote:Thats because the club didn't fight the clause like Atleti did... they mutually agreed to go by the arrangement. But if the club that got loaned the player actually fought the arrangement, the player would be able to play... that's why Chelsea was upset at Atleti. Chelsea will never loan Atleti a player again (or at least for a long time).

Personally, i think that a definitive ruling should be made on whether such clauses are either allowed or not. No need to have such a grey area.

sports, sorry but you don't know what you're talking about.

It's not a clause, it's in the Premier league rules and regulations.
Between Chelsea and Atletico it was a completely different story, as yes there it was a contract clause since no such rule exists for UEFA, and rightly so.

I don't know about that.  Someone told me that there's no written rules or regulation in the EPL that addresses it.  It's never been an issue thus it's never been brought up....  so if you include it in a contract, you can go to the league and ask for a ruling on enforceability if you want to break the clause.  Nobody has ever done that in the EPL.  So nobody knows whether it's enforceable or not because there is nothing...  no rule or precedent... that you can point to.  At least that's what someone's told me.

Atleti forced UEFA to take a stand and they did although there is no text either allowing it or stopping it in UEFA regulations either.  All UEFA said was that, if the matter was brought before them, they would consider the clause to go against their idea of fair play.  

My point is that you should just go ahead and just put text in all of the rulebooks so it's clear.  Right now, it's a common law issue with no precedent other than with UEFA.

sportsczy wrote:I don't know about that.  Someone told me that there's no written rules or regulation in the EPL that addresses it.  It's never been an issue thus it's never been brought up....  so if you include it in a contract, you can go to the league and ask for a ruling on enforceability if you want to break the clause.  Nobody has ever done that in the EPL.  So nobody knows whether it's enforceable or not because there is nothing...  no rule or precedent... that you can point to.  At least that's what someone's told me.

Atleti forced UEFA to take a stand and they did although there is no text either allowing it or stopping it in UEFA regulations either.  All UEFA said was that, if the matter was brought before them, they would consider the clause to go against their idea of fair play.  

My point is that you should just go ahead and just put text in all of the rulebooks so it's clear.  Right now, it's a common law issue with no precedent other than with UEFA.

that somebody told you wrong

m.premierleague.com/en-gb/about/handbook-2013-14.html

page 198, rule V.7.2

Hapless_Hans wrote:
that somebody told you wrong

m.premierleague.com/en-gb/about/handbook-2013-14.html

page 198, rule V.7.2

  Thanks.  Well i don't understand why UEFA ruled against Chelsea then.  With EPL allowing this type of clause and Atleti accepting the clause, UEFA really overstepped imo.  Pretty bs.  

My friend is Spanish so i think he had a bias in making his case to me lol.  Thanks again...

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:It's not a clause, it's a bonafied league wide rule lol, it's one of the things I was alluding to when I said the rules need to change.

Indeed it's a weird rule. In the Bundesliga, loaned players have no problems playing against their "parent clubs". As a matter of fact, they often consider it a matter of honour to show them what they are missing by loaning them out XD

(E.g. quite some people shook their heads that Schalke loaned Kyriakos Papadopoulos to their direct rival for the CL places Bayer Leverkusen.)

sportsczy wrote:

Hapless_Hans wrote:
that somebody told you wrong

m.premierleague.com/en-gb/about/handbook-2013-14.html

page 198, rule V.7.2

  Thanks.  Well i don't understand why UEFA ruled against Chelsea then.  With EPL allowing this type of clause and Atleti accepting the clause, UEFA really overstepped imo.  Pretty bs.  

My friend is Spanish so i think he had a bias in making his case to me lol.  Thanks again...

Because it's two different matters. What I was talking about, and the rule, is only the Premier League.
The Premier League has this rule, UEFA (and the Bundesliga and other leagues) thank god have not.
So if Chelsea loan out a player to Atletico, the rule of course does not apply.
Chelsea and Atletico had a contract clause - which UEFA said was either none of their business, not approved by them and not enforcable by them.
I guess if Atletico had REFUSED to pay and Chelsea had INSISTED on the clause, they would have had to settle it in front of CAS or anything, and I don't think it's sure how that would have been ruled.
In the end I think Chelsea decided to not insist on the payment in the clause, probably because public and public UEFA backlash (even if not legally clear), and also probably because they just made some deal with Atletico.
Maybe they got a little money of Costa or Filipe, who knows.