Uefa to compensate club sides during major tournaments
Monday, 21 Jan 2008 22:26
The compensation rules will start this summer at Euro 2008
Clubs will be compensated when their players appear in the latter stages of the World Cup and European Championships, Uefa has announced.
Uefa president Michael Platini said it will pay clubs £2,970 for each day a player is involved in the knockout stages of a major tournament.
The radical changes will start at Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland. Clubs have long complained that their star players return to pre-season training exhausted after a tournament.
The cash will be shared among any clubs a player has played for within two years prior to the tournament.
Frenchman Platini said: "It was utterly unthinkable to me that players could not be released by their clubs for international tournaments. But it was also logical to give clubs some kind of compensation and a share of the profits."
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of the new European Club Association which replaces the G14 lobby group, said: "This is a day of reunification for the football family. It is very much down to Michael Platini because he has propounded the principle of giving and sharing."
UEFA has set aside £32.3million in compensation for clubs at Euro 2008 and a further £41million for the 2012 European championships in Poland and Ukraine.
Platini announced that FIFA would be contributing a combined total of £56.6million for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 tournament in Brazil.