FIFA is disbursing cash to clubs whose players participate in the World Cup finals in Qatar, 12 years following the Compensation Fund was approved.
According to fifaIt is the governing body for football in the world and is located in Zurich, Switzerland. The “Club Benefits” program grants financial compensation to any club from which players participate in the World Cup, “as part of (FIFA’s) commitment to successfully assess the contribution of football clubs to the World Cup.”
FIFA approved $209 million to compensate clubs around the world, following 416 clubs from 63 countries benefited from this program during the last World Cup hosted by Russia in 2018.
Sports historian Hussain Al-Balooshi said that FIFA grants these bonuses in an attempt to encourage clubs to allow their players to join the national teams well in advance of the World Cup.
He added, “The idea is to compensate clubs that have players in the World Cup for the period of preparation and participation in the World Cup, especially since non-international players or whose national teams did not qualify for the World Cup will be on vacation during the summer period in which the tournament is usually held.”
FIFA had launched the Compensation Fund for the first time during the 2010 World Cup, which South Africa hosted in the first World Cup to be held on the African continent.
The value of the fund has increased dramatically over the past decade, from $40 million for 2010 in South Africa to $70 million for 2014 in Brazil.
At the last World Cup, $209 million was also distributed to clubs as part of the same programme, according to the newspaper.come on” Spanish.
Allowing clubs to join their national teams has always been considered a controversial issue in the world of football, as clubs always stick to the stars who pay them millions of dollars to stay with them, especially since the national teams do not pay salaries to these players.
FIFA organizes this process by forcing clubs to release their players to the national teams during international matches held in what is called “FIFA days” according to the international calendar.
The international player is allowed to join his country’s national team 72 hours before the national team’s match date if he is on the same continent, while the period increases to 96 hours if the player is traveling to another continent.
Barcelona globally and Al Sadd in the Arab world
Through this program, Al-Balooshi indicates that FIFA wants to motivate clubs by paying them handsome compensation for the participation of their players according to a specific mechanism that it has set, in light of the problems that always occur in this context.
Speaking to Al-Hurra TV website, Al-Balooshi said that clubs need to register the data of their participating players electronically through a link provided by FIFA before disbursing these dues.
He pointed out that FIFA spends $10,000 for any day a player spends with his country’s national team in the World Cup, two weeks before the opening match and until the next day of the player’s national team’s exit, where the share of one player can reach a maximum of $370,000.
He pointed out that the clubs that the player represented during the two years before the World Cup will also benefit from this program, not just his current club.
Clubs are compensated for all their World Cup players, regardless of whether they participate in matches or not, according to Al Balushi, an expert on FIFA regulations.
Al-Balooshi said that the major European clubs stand on the pyramid of the most prominent list of beneficiaries of this program, indicating that Barcelona, which has 17 players, and Manchester City, which is represented by 16 players, may be the largest recipients of compensation.
The German club Bayern Munich also stands out, which has 15 players from its ranks participating in the World Cup, Spanish Real Madrid (14 players), Manchester United (14 players) and London Chelsea (12 players).
Among the Arab clubs, Al-Balushi explained that the Qatari Al-Sadd is the most prominent in the Arab world, with 15 players representing the Qatar national team, then Al-Hilal Saudi Arabia, which supported Al-Akhdar with 12 players.
However, Al-Balooshi confirmed that the compensation cannot be estimated accurately, given that all the clubs that the player represented during the past two years are eligible to participate in the benefits program, in addition to that there are a number of players who are still playing with their national teams until now.
