With the Summer 2026 transfer market now open in Europe, clubs will be conducting international transfers of player registrations.
Most attention will be focussed on the commercial terms: the guaranteed payments, the instalment split, the contingent payments and the effect on new financial control rules within European or domestic leagues.
What happens though when a club fails to pay in time? Parties are able to agree an appropriate jurisdiction and the FIFA RSTP provide regulatory support to the selling club. There are, however, some clauses that may not receive the attention they deserve, that would support the selling club in the event of non-payment.
In this article, we outline some such clauses that clubs should keep in mind.
Notice provisions
It is common that international transfer agreements will have a clause within which states how a party should be formally notified. For example, at what postal address or email address a legal notice of non-payment should be sent to.
In an international context, email addresses will likely be the simplest, being immediate as opposed to sending post overseas. In this instance, parties should think about the most appropriate email address(es) to nominate in the transfer agreement. Will that email address be monitored effectively?
A formal legal notice of non-payment may be invalid if it is not sent in strict accordance with a notice provision contained within. It is therefore important this clause, if contained within the transfer agreement, is thought through carefully and any notice respects the provisions agreed.
Parties should think how they want to be notified themselves and how they would like to notify the other party.
Acceleration clause
For the consideration for a player’s registration, it is very common that international transfers will involve payment by instalments.
For a selling club, it is important that the transfer agreement has contractual protections in case of a late, or non, payment of any instalment.
One of the most useful of these is an acceleration clause. This is a clause which will trigger all and any future instalments to become immediately due and payable if an instalment becomes late and/or remains unpaid.
An acceleration clause is valuable in a scenario where, for example, a buying club defaults on the first of five instalments. An effective acceleration clause within the transfer agreement would mean that the selling club can accelerate all the instalments under the transfer agreement, whether due and payable at that time or not, to become immediately due and payable together. Should it be necessary to go to the FIFA Football Tribunal or some other body to recover the unpaid sums, the selling club would be able to claim the entire accelerated amount, rather than the individual instalment. This avoids having to go back to a tribunal for a new claim for each unpaid instalment if the buying club keeps defaulting.
What is your level of interest?
As is common in normal commercial contracts, in an international transfer agreement, the parties are free to agree an appropriate level of interest in the event of default of a payment.
But clubs should be aware of what level of interest is acceptable in international transfer agreements.
FIFA has recently added helpful context to this. Article 23(5) of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (“RSTP”) states the following:
In cases of overdue payables or outstanding remuneration, the Football Tribunal shall award standard interest for late payment at the rate of 8% per annum, subject to a valid request from the claimant and without prejudice to a contractually agreed interest rate. The Football Tribunal shall have discretion to apply a lower interest rate if justified by the exceptional circumstances of a case.
In other words, in the absence of an expressly agreed rate of interest contained within the transfer agreement, FIFA will award a creditor club a rate of interest on an overdue payable of 8% per annum.
This does not mean that 8% is the maximum amount of interest that a debtor club can enforce. Indeed, clubs should note that wording: “subject to a valid request from the claimant and without prejudice to a contractually agreed interest rate”.
Clubs are therefore free to agree a higher level of interest within the transfer agreement, and this will of course depend on commercial negotiations. However, in doing so, clubs should be conscious that a rate of interest deemed excessive by the FIFA Football Tribunal and could be held to be unenforceable under Swiss law (the law commonly agreed in transfer agreements and applied in default by the FIFA Football Tribunal).
Whether this would mean that a FIFA Football Tribunal would then default to an 8% remains to be seen considering the introduction of Article 23(5) above.
It is worth noting that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) has recently held interest as high as 18% per annum was acceptable and enforceable[1]. But this may only be a valid level for certain scenarios between certain parties and it is possible a lower rate of interest could be deemed excessive by FIFA and/or the CAS in another scenario.
Enforceability of interest is therefore a risk well worth considering carefully.
Time for enforcement in the event of non-payment
If there is an overdue payable in an international transfer agreement, a club can use the Article 12bis procedure contained within FIFA’s RSTP, before eventually starting a claim at FIFA’s Football Tribunal, to seek repayment.
Whilst this is an effective way for a creditor club to recover payment from the debtor club, a creditor club should be made aware of the timeframes that can be involved in eventual recovery.
It is common that effective repayment of an overdue payable can take several months. Whilst the Article 12bis procedure has prescribed timeframes, and FIFA is efficient in resolving an overdue payable dispute, a party could exercise its right to appeal any FIFA to the CAS, causing significant delay to enforcement (even if the appeal is weak).
This is perhaps also why an acceleration clause can add real value to an international transfer agreement, in the scenario where a club continues to default on multiple instalments.
The Sports Team at Squire Patton Boggs have vast experience in the negotiation and conclusion of international transfers and the disputes arising therefrom, over the past two decades. Feel free to get in touch if you have an issue that concerns you.
[1] CAS 2024/A/10725 Anorthosis Famagusta FC v. Erik Sabo, decision of 25 February 2025 [106].
