(Reuters) – French club SC Malesherbois have received a payment from the FIFA Clearing House worth more than their annual budget for their role in developing a player sold to a top European club, world soccer’s governing body said on Tuesday.
FIFA’s centralised clearing house was launched in November last year with the aim of bringing “transparency and accountability” amid efforts to crack down on the multi-billion dollar global transfer market.
The Paris-based entity focuses on ensuring smaller clubs receive compensation owed for developing players before tackling the broader market.
According to reports in French media, Malesherbois received the payment for the transfer of Benoit Badiashile from Ligue 1 side Monaco to Premier League club Chelsea in January in a deal reportedly worth 35 million pounds ($44.11 million).
French defender Badiashile played for Malesherbois between 2008-16.
“The transaction, amounting to 159,990 euros ($172,677.21), was triggered by the international transfer of a player who was trained by SC Malesherbois as an amateur between the ages of 12 and 15 and has recently been signed by a top European club,” FIFA said in a statement.
“The payment is in excess of the French club’s annual budget and represents the largest amount it has received for training a player to date, with similar payments expected from future instalments related to this transfer.”
The clearing house is the latest step in FIFA’s effort to reform the way transfers are conducted and ensure money is not redirected outside the sport.
FIFA added that it has generated nearly 7,300 electronic player passports since November and that allocation statements worth 18 million dollars had already been shared with the clearing house.
“It was a fully automated process, in which we just had to follow the instructions provided by the FIFA Clearing House,” the French club’s president Emmanuel Esnault said.
“We didn’t have to claim our training rewards, which is a real improvement for a small club like us.”
($1 = 0.9265 euros)
($1 = 0.7934 pounds)
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Nashik, India; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
