Barcelona to appeal Fifa transfer ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport
Barcelona will go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a bid to a fight a Fifa ban on all transfer activity until January 2016.
Fifa imposed the ban spanning two transfer windows in April this year, after discovering that the Catalan club had breached regulation regarding the signing of players under the age of 18.
Barcelona appealed the ruling, allowing them to continue signing players this summer, but Fifa has today stood by their original decision and state that the ban will start in January 2015.
On their official website today Fifa described the decision as "an affront to the spirit of our Masia [the club's academy], a world renowned example of academic, human and sporting education", and say they will "continue defending its interests before the highest sporting authority, in this case the CAS".
Fifa also ordered Barcelona to pay a £295,000 fine and has given them 90 days in which to "regularise the situation of all minor players concerned".
The organising body said in a statement this morning:
FC Barcelona is to serve a transfer ban which will see the club prevented from registering any players at both national and international level for two complete and consecutive transfer periods, starting with the next registration period [January 2015].
Barcelona have been busy bolstering their squad while the ban was suspended pending appeal, spending over £100m on new players (including a reported £65m on Luis Suarez), the Blaugrana's largest ever transfer outlay in a single season.
Fifa's original investigation found that Barcelona were guilty of "serious infringement" of their rules in ten signings made between 2009 and 2013.
Fifa's regulation on international transfers state that international transfers of players over the age of 18 are only permitted under the following conditions:
- The players parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons other than football.
- The transfer takes place within the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA).
- The player lives no further than 50km from a national border and the club he wishes to join is within 50km of that same border.