FIFA believes The Daily Telegraph's undercover investigation into corruption in football has shown that its efforts to tighten up the transfer system have worked.
One of the issues to arise from the Telegraph's reports this week is the fear that some in the game are circumventing rules against the third-party ownership of players, which is where an investor or group of investors will own a share or all of a player's commercial rights.
But a spokesperson for FIFA told Press Association Sport the reality of the situation is it is now hard for anybody to get around the ban on third-party ownership.
"The system has become more difficult to be abused because we have clear rules, in particular, with disclosure obligations for the clubs," the spokesperson explained.
Once widespread in South America, Portugal and Spain, third-party ownership has been described by the likes of FIFA president Gianni Infantino and former UEFA president Michel Platini as football's version of "slavery".
It was banned in England in 2008 after the controversy surrounding West Ham's 2006 purchase of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez, both of whom were effectively owned by agents, with FIFA banning the practice worldwide in 2015.
Its supporters say it enables smaller teams to acquire talent they could not normally afford, and therefore spreads talent more evenly through the league. They also point out clubs were only given a four-month transition period in 2015 before FIFA's rules came into effect.
But critics of third-party ownership believe it represents a threat to the integrity of competitions, encourages the exploitation of players and locks clubs into costly relations with external investors.
The Telegraph caught Sam Allardyce on camera talking about a way to "get around" the Football Association's "ridiculous" rules on third-party ownership - an indiscretion that cost him his job as England manager - while Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino was filmed talking to undercover reporters about a different method to sidestep the ban.
According to footage released by the newspaper this week, Allardyce appears to suggest investors could recoup their money via the commissions paid to agents and Cellino suggests investors could buy shares in his club to take a percentage of any player sales.
Both men have denied any wrongdoing and, as Leeds United have pointed out in a club statement, Cellino's idea does not in itself break any rules.
FIFA thinks the key to rooting out third-party ownership has been the governing body's Transfer Matching System, an online platform developed in 2009 that logs the details of every cross-border transfer.
"TMS requires clubs to provide information on possibly existing third-party ownership agreements, or confirm the non-existence of such agreements, and compliance is run systematically," the spokesperson said.
"A FIFA d isciplinary committee addresses the different cases of potential violations of the applicable rules, considering all specific and individual aspects of the affair and, should an illegitimate circumvention of the rules be detected, then sanctions could possibly be imposed."
Brazil's Santos, Spanish club Sevilla, Belgium's Sint-Truidense VV and Dutch side FC Twente have all been sanctioned this year for either failing to mention third-party interests via TMS or for entering into new arrangements. Their fines have ranged from £44,000 to £147,000.
And last year, Belgian side FC Seraing failed to persuade a Brussels court to lift FIFA's rule and was hit with a two-year transfer ban for its arrangement with Malta-based investment group Doyen.
Daniel Lowen, a partner at specialist sports law firm Couchmans, said nobody should be shocked that clubs are exploring ways to replace third-party ownership investment.
Speaking to PA Sport, Lowen said: "FIFA's third-party ownership restriction is deliberately drafted in very broad terms, making it difficult to get around.
"But the reality is many clubs around the world relied on it as a source of revenue, so it is hardly surprising many in the game are looking for creative solutions to replace that revenue that do not contravene FIFA's or national associations' rules and regulations."
Source: PA
