Arsene Wenger: FIFA right to hit Barcelona with transfer ban

 
4 April 2014

Arsene Wenger today said Barcelona deserve the transfer ban imposed by FIFA but insists the rules signing players under the age of 18 must be changed.

Barca are not allowed to buy players for the next two transfer windows and were fined £305,000 after they were found guilty of breaching restrictions on the signing of 10 teenagers between 2009 and 2013.

International transfers are only acceptable for players over the age of 18 unless the deal is covered by one of three points — their parents move to that new country for non‑footballing reasons, if they are from another nation within the European Union and are aged between 16 or 18, or if they live within 100km of the club they are signing for.

Barcelona are appealing the decision and have previously been critical of Arsenal, who signed Fran Merida, Ignasi Miquel and, most notably, Cesc Fabregas, from their youth set-up at a young age.

But Wenger said: “They have not respected the rules. The rule is quite simple, you cannot move the players before the age of 16 unless their parents move for professional reasons, so that of course creates a bit of debate — do the parents move for professional reasons or not?

“In this case, FIFA have judged the parents moved for football reasons and that is why they were banned because they have not respected the rules. At the time they were critical of us, you look at their players, even their players who have come out from their youth academy, people like Andres Iniesta, he came from a very young age from the north of Spain. So they have always scouted people from all over Spain.

Arsene Wenger's best Arsenal XI

1/11

“I think the rules need to be changed because there is more and more competition now to get the young players. You always will be in a debate. There is more and more money in the game so the parents will be tempted to give a chance to the young boys to make a great career.”

Arsenal are seven points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool and face a difficult trip to Everton on Sunday but Wenger insists shock results such as Crystal Palace’s win over Chelsea last week give him hope his side can still win the title.

“You don’t want to give up as long as you have a mathematical chance,” he said. “We are certainly still out, out, out, outsiders. We have a very small percentage. If you don’t fight and you have results like Crystal Palace versus Chelsea and you have given up because we didn’t believe it, you would be absolutely 100 per cent guilty. We have a small percentage to do it but this small percentage you have to give absolutely everything to make it possible.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in