Spanish giants Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid have had their FIFA-issued transfer bans suspended by the FIFA appeal committee till the appeal process is completed. Earlier, the two Madrid clubs were issued a transfer embargo for two windows for their breach of rules on international transfer and registration of players aged under 18.
The fact that both clubs immediately appealed against the ruling helped have their bans lifted, temporarily, with announcements coming in from both clubs that the FIFA appeal committee had suspended the bans till the appeals were heard.
Under the initial ruling, both clubs had been banned from registering any new players for the next two transfer windows, ensuring that no additions are made to either the squad or academy in the summer of 2016 and the January transfer window in 2017.
Following the lifting of the ban, Real Madrid issued an official statement that said, “Real Madrid has announced that the FIFA appeal committee has decided to provisionally suspend the sanction imposed on the club.”
Atletico Madrid also released a statement, saying, “The Fifa appeal committee has granted the probationary suspension of the sanction imposed by the disciplinary committee of said body that prevented our club from signing national or foreign football players during the next two full periods of recruitment.”
“The probationary suspension of said sanction shall be applied pending the outcome of the appeal filed by our club with the appeal committee of the maximum global governing body of football,” they added.
A similar ban had been issued to Barcelona in 2014 for signing underage players and the Catalan club were not allowed to register players in 2015. Although the ban didn’t prevent the club from signing players like Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal, they were not allowed to register them as part of the squad and so could not play them for six months.
Till it was suspended, the conditions of the ban imposed on Atletico and Real Madrid stated that they could make signings in the 2016 January window and that the sale and release of players would not have been affected as it wasn’t under the purvier of the ban.
At this point, it isn’t very clear when the appeals for both clubs will be heard, but what it means is that if the appeals process continues into the summer, both teams will be able to conduct business in the summer, pending the completion of the ban. However, it is believed that the appeals process will finish before the summer transfer window.
