Brussels, 13/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The meeting suggested by the European Commission between three of its Commissioners and officials of organisations that govern football at world level (FIFA) and European level (UEFA) will be held in Brussels on Wednesday morning. Commissioners Mario Monti (competition), Ms. Reding (sport) and Anna Diamantopoulou (free movement of persons) will meet Mr. Blatter, President of FIFA and Mr. Johansson, President of UEFA. The aim is to provide a political impetus to the definition of a transfer system for football players between clubs that takes account of the special nature of sport and its goals, and that at the same time is compatible with Community law. A technical meeting devoted to the issue was convened a while back for 16 February, so as to close the issue; but the Commission's services noted that discussions, after a period of rapid progress in November and December last, were stalled due to certain differences within the world of football itself (and the excessive demands of football unions, which wanted to take advantage of the situation to gain conditions unacceptable to the federations and clubs). This is why the Commission suggested a Summit meeting before the technical meeting, and both FIFA and UEFA agreed to that.
Those aspects under discussion should essentially concern a contract between a football player and a club being able to be broken before it expires.