Foreword

Dear football friends, 

It’s been a busy time in professional football with the second half of 2021 marked by a flurry of player transfers taking place.

As you may know, and as a core part of FIFA’s vision to create a more competitive and balanced ecosystem, FIFA is currently revising the transfer system’s regulatory framework.  

Over the last few months, we have been working with actors across the game to develop key principles that have been agreed by the Football Stakeholders Committee at its last meeting. Based on these principles, detailed proposals will be presented by the end of the year to the FIFA Council, on international transfer of players and transfer windows (i.e. registration period). More information is contained within this edition of the journal (visit Chapter 8 “FIFA Regulatory”). 

In addition to these important reforms, and in line with our efforts to continue sharing insight and best practice to develop the game, FIFA Professional Football has launched a range of stakeholder-related initiatives, such as the Diploma in Club Management. The programme provides global football executives with the tools to compete at the highest level off the pitch and take their respective clubs to the next level. The inaugural course has now surpassed the halfway mark and will run until the beginning of 2022, with a ceremony to be held at the Home of FIFA in Zurich to celebrate the conclusion of the first edition. It will be the course’s second in-person component after last month’s session took place from 22-25 September in Madrid. We invite you to read the in-depth article featuring a video summary and accompanying images of this landmark hybrid event bringing together course participants both on-site and online to enjoy a diverse schedule of lectures, speeches and field trips in the Spanish capital. Should you be interested in the second instalment of the course, make sure to stay tuned for information later this year regarding the application procedure for 2022.

The first half of 2021 also saw another important accomplishment being achieved for the FIFA Fund for Football Players project whereby a total of 1,005 applications were approved by a joint Steering Committee, composed of FIFA and FIFPRO representatives, to allow over a thousand players from around the world to receive financial relief in the first phase of the fund for which FIFA has allocated a total of USD 5 million.

Last but not least, FIFA Professional Football has been conducting analyses on the most important topics and trends in professional football, producing two landmark reports so far in 2021 (download and read the reports’ highlights below): 

the FIFA Comparative Analysis of Second and Third Divisions  

• This report is a landmark study of how second and third-tier competitions and the participating clubs are run in the top 25 FIFA member associations, based on the men’s FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking.  

the FIFA Global Competitive Balance Report    

• The 2020 Global Competitive Balance Report presents the level of competitiveness in every country around the world and gives a data-driven account of how domestic competitions have developed in recent years.

We hope you enjoy reading both reports, along with the diverse content featured in this third issue of the FIFA Professional Football Journal, which has been carefully curated in an effort to share best practice and unique insights transparently with the professional football ecosystem. 

With two action-packed months of 2021 still to come, we are truly excited about this current season of football, which, to the delight of everyone passionate about the beautiful game, has seen a gradual return of fans to stadiums, restoring the vibrant and unique atmosphere that football provides all around the globe. 

To share your ideas and comments with us, please feel free to write to us at prof.football.journal@fifa.org.  

It’s time for kick-off – happy reading!