FOOTBALL JARGON!

Mandate: A mandate is legal document which authorises an agent/s to act on the player behalf in regard to the player contract negotiations. Club mandate: authorisation to represent the player only in that club. Exclusive mandate: authorisation to represent player in every club of that association. Transfer window: a specific period in the year where football clubs can buy and sell players. Transfer: Is the transfer action taken whenever a player under contract moves between clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player’s registration from one association football club to another. International clearance: Is a certificate which is issued from the current national association to the new national providing the player has fulfilled all his contract requirements at his former club. Representation contract Is a contract/written agreement between agent/intermediary and player authorising the representation of the player in his contract negotiations. A representation contract has to be lodged with the national association where the player is registered for it to be valid. A representation contract can be exclusive or non- exclusive and can last more than 2 years from the date it is signed. Training compensation: Is the payments made to cover the development/training of young players from 12 – 23rd birthday. Solidarity mechanism: Is the compensation paid when a player transfers between clubs of different associations, five percent of the transfer fee is split up between all the clubs who had a role in the development of the player from the ages of 12- 23. Image rights: are the expression of a personality in the public domain. The provision of image rights in law enables the definition, value, commercial exploitation and protection of image rights associated with a person. Work permit: is the permission to take a job within a foreign country. To qualify for a work permit to play football in the United Kingdom, there are simple procedures that players must follow which vary between England and Scotland. In simple terms, if a player has featured in at least 75% of his country’s competitive international games over the last two years, he will receive an endorsement from the Scottish FA. If they fall short, a panel is convened to consider whether the player is of the “highest caliber”, and whether an endorsement should be granted in any case. The procedures for moving to England vary considerably and the distinctions are outlined below. Who needs a work permit? Any player who is over 16 years old and is not from the European Economic Area, which covers 32 countries aside from the UK, requires a work permit to play for a British club. A Commonwealth citizen with at least one grandparent who was born in the UK does not need to apply through the points based system. Such players will still require a work permit but go through a different process. How to get a work permit When a club signs a player who requires a work permit, they agree to sponsor the player to be in the UK, meaning they will provide the funds for his time in the country. A certificate of sponsorship is then produced by the club, which is then submitted to the relevant FA for them to consider an endorsement. For the Scottish FA to give their approval, the player in question must have played 75 per cent of his nation’s competitive games – excluding friendlies – in the two years prior to the date of application. Furthermore, the country the player is coming to must have, on average over those two years, been in the top 70 of the FIFA rankings. Successful applications for endorsement are then sent to the Home Office to be processed. Failure to meet these requirements, unless it can be proven a player was unavailable for selection for a period of time, results in an automatic rejection of any application for a Scottish FA endorsement for a work permit certificate of sponsorship.