Football, those youngsters blocked by an overcome rule

Standard young people and apprenticeship contracts. Where is the right balance between the need to safeguard the nurseries of Italian football and the freedom of the baby players to choose their path? A complex skein which, despite the corrections of the norm just introduced by the FIGC on Input of the Antitrust, is not entirely unraveled. But let’s start from the beginning.

history

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In May 2024 the Football Federation had intervened on the Noif: in addition to the biennial bond admitted by current legislation, the right to impose to the football players “young people” (aged between 14 and 19 years registered for a professional club) was offered to football clubs a professionalizing apprenticeship contract for the maximum duration of three years, regardless of the will of the athletes themselves. A measure, explain from via Allegri, passed to protect the companies that invest in the training of talents, in response to the abolition of the sports bond provided for by the reform of the sport and then extended until 30 June 2025. The authority of the competition and the market, however, has started a moral suasion against the FIGC expressing reliefs during the auditions enlarged to the leagues and to the assignee. Thus, last January, the Federal Council approved a new version of the Noif: the stipulation of the apprenticeship contract is subject to an express manifestation of will by the athlete, without which, at the expiry of the sports bond, the player is free to continue his football path elsewhere. Small detail: will the provision enter into force on 1 July 2025. And the contractualized players unilaterally before that date?

penalized

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The “liberal” rule is not retroactive, so those athletes will remain bound to the company even if they want to make different choices. This is the answer we received from FIGC. We acted on the transitional period only to anticipate one year the right referred to in paragraph 2 bis of article 33 of the Noif: in the event of a two-year membership that occurred during the 2024-25 season, the companies will be able to exercise their right to have the athlete subscribe to an apprenticeship contract “exclusively in June 2025”. Nor would it be possible for the Antitrustust to return to the matter, because the Moral Suasion – a procedure chosen because it has faster times and does not lend its side to appeals – ended with that regulatory modification. The problem remains, therefore, for those players who were registered between 2024 and 2025, during the phase in which the unilateral contract was in force. We are talking about fifty athletes throughout Italy, which will remain bound until 2027 by virtue of a rule exceeded in the meantime. The only way, for them, is to challenge the contract and resort to the ordinary judge, before which they will be able to mention the action of Moral Suasion of the Antitrustust as an element in their favor.