Loughborough University
Browse
Yilmaz et al 2018 IRSS.pdf (112.93 kB)

Children’s rights and the regulations on the transfer of young players in football

Download (112.93 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2018-06-28, 10:23 authored by Serhat YilmazSerhat Yilmaz, James Esson, Paul Darby, Eleanor Drywood, Carolynne MasonCarolynne Mason
Children who interact with football’s recruitment and transfer processes encounter a complex web of regulations and practices. Debates over how to ensure that the interests and well-being of young football players are adequately protected, and that risks to their rights and welfare are identified and addressed, have become a topic of academic, political, and media concern. This commentary article provides an overview of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) regulations concerning the mobility and representation of minors in player recruitment processes, in particular the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) and the Regulations on Working with Intermediaries (RWI). We examine these regulations through the lens of the United Nations Children’s Rights Conventions (UNCRC). In so doing, the article demonstrates how football’s regulatory frameworks and commercial practices inadvertently yield consequences that operate against the best interests of children involved in the sport. To counteract this, it is proposed that all planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of regulations involving the recruitment and transfer of young people should be explicitly informed by globally accepted standards of children’s rights, such as the UNCRC. More specifically, it is argued that FIFA should adopt an approach that places the child at the centre of regulatory frameworks and characterises the child as a ‘rights holder’.

Funding

The research informing this article was conducted as part of a UNICEF funded project on the protection of minors in professional football.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

International Review for the Sociology of Sport

Volume

55

Issue

1

Pages

115-124

Citation

YILMAZ, S. ...et al., 2018. Children’s rights and the regulations on the transfer of young players in football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(1), pp. 115-124.

Publisher

© The authors. Published by SAGE Publications

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2018-06-13

Publication date

2018-07-15

Notes

This paper was accepted for publication in the journal International Review for the Sociology of Sport and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690218786665

ISSN

1461-7218

Language

  • en