<p class="reg-lead">FIFA National Dispute Resolution Chamber Recognition Principles, February 2024 — the document that replaced the "Standard Regulations" and sets out the criteria for recognising a national dispute resolution body.</p>

<table class="reg-facts">
<tr><td>Publication</td><td><b>February 2024</b> — Fédération Internationale de Football Association</td></tr>
<tr><td>Length</td><td>32 pages</td></tr>
<tr><td>Replaces</td><td>Standard Regulations National Dispute Resolution Chamber (2008)</td></tr>
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<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>What this document determines</h2>
<p>FIFA has had its own Dispute Resolution Chamber for employment disputes with an international dimension since 2001, but a large share of club–player disputes is heard at national level. This document determines the conditions a national body must satisfy for FIFA to <strong>recognise</strong> it — and, consequently, for that body's jurisdiction to be invoked before FIFA's bodies.</p>
<p>The constant axes of this assessment are the same as those in the previous document: <strong>equal representation</strong> of clubs and players, the body's <strong>independence</strong> from the management of the federation, fair proceedings, and a clear route of appeal.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec hi">
<h2>Why the replacement of the 2008 document matters</h2>
<p>The 2008 "Standard Regulations" were a template that federations could copy. The new approach shifts from a template to a <strong>criterion</strong>: instead of prescribing a text, FIFA states the principles a national body must meet, and assesses whether they have been met.</p>
<p>For Iranian football this difference is a practical one. In many of the cases reaching FIFA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the first question has been whether the domestic body satisfied the necessary conditions — and from February 2024 onwards, the criterion for that question is this document.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>Who this document matters to</h2>
<p>The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in designing and amending its domestic dispute resolution bodies, and counsel for clubs and players in assessing the jurisdiction of those bodies. This text is read alongside the "Standard Regulations 2008"; the latter is the history of the subject and this one is today's criterion.</p>
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FIFA National Dispute Resolution Chamber Recognition Principles — February 2024

<p class="reg-lead">FIFA's official Commentary on the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, third edition — published on 28 November 2023, only two years after the previous edition.</p>

<table class="reg-facts">
<tr><td>Publication</td><td><b>28 November 2023</b> — Fédération Internationale de Football Association</td></tr>
<tr><td>Edition</td><td><b>Third</b> — previous: 2007 and 2021</td></tr>
<tr><td>Instrument commented on</td><td>Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP)</td></tr>
<tr><td>Status</td><td>The governing version of this family</td></tr>
</table>

<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>What is the Commentary and what authority does it carry?</h2>
<p>The Commentary is not the regulations themselves; it is an explanatory text written by FIFA on the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players in order to clarify the purpose of each article and the manner of its application. Its structure follows that of the regulations, and each article is commented on separately.</p>
<p>The practical value of the Commentary lies in the fact that it brings the jurisprudence of FIFA's judicial bodies and of the Court of Arbitration for Sport into the commentary on the articles; that is, the reader sees not only the text of the article, but the reading given to it in actual cases.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec hi">
<h2>What made this edition necessary?</h2>
<p>The interval between the first edition (2007) and the second (2021) was fourteen years; the interval between the second and the third only two. The reason for this acceleration is the volume of amendments imposed on the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players within that same period.</p>
<p>The third edition contains two things that the 2021 edition could not: <strong>the subsequent amendments to the regulations themselves</strong>, and <strong>the more recent jurisprudence of the FIFA Football Tribunal and the Court of Arbitration for Sport</strong>. The FIFA Football Tribunal, which succeeded the Players' Status Committee and the Dispute Resolution Chamber, built up in that interval a body of jurisprudence commented on only in this edition.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>Who this document matters to</h2>
<p>Clubs, players and agents involved in international transfers, and lawyers handling cases on contract termination, compensation and sporting just cause. In Iranian cases brought before the FIFA Football Tribunal, the Commentary is the most frequently used document in support of argument — and for events occurring after November 2023, it is this edition that governs.</p>
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FIFA Commentary on the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players — 2023 edition

The PDF contains a Persian translation of the legal document recently published by FIFA on the legal issues arising from COVID-19. This highly important document may be consulted as a guide by all those active in football.

COVID-19: Football Regulatory Issues

<p class="reg-lead">FIFA Club Licensing Handbook, 2017 edition — the operational guide to the licensing system on the basis of which national associations establish clubs' eligibility to take part in competitions.</p>

<table class="reg-facts">
<tr><td>Edition</td><td><b>2017</b></td></tr>
<tr><td>Publisher</td><td>Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) — Zurich</td></tr>
<tr><td>Length</td><td>36 pages</td></tr>
</table>

<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>What is the club licensing system?</h2>
<p>Club licensing is a mechanism under which a club must satisfy specified criteria in order to take part in competitions. These criteria are usually defined in five categories: sporting, infrastructure, personnel and administrative, legal, and financial.</p>
<p>The Handbook is not the licensing regulations themselves but a guide to their implementation: it tells the national association how to build its own licensing system, which bodies are required for the granting of licences and for appeals, and how the assessment and documentation process is to be carried out.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec hi">
<h2>Why this document is contentious in Iranian football</h2>
<p>The <strong>financial and legal</strong> criteria generate the most disputes in practice. The requirement of having no overdue payables to players, coaches and other clubs, and the obligation of transparency as to ownership and financial statements, are precisely the points that clubs encounter when obtaining a professional licence.</p>
<p>The consequence of the absence of a licence is not merely administrative: it may lead to exclusion from participation in continental competitions, and it is that decision which is raised in appeal proceedings before confederation bodies and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>Who this document matters to</h2>
<p>Professional clubs, the league organisation and the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran deal with this framework in the licensing process. For the sports lawyer, this document is the basis for assessing whether a decision refusing or suspending a licence was taken on the basis of the announced criteria and in compliance with the prescribed procedure.</p>
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FIFA Club Licensing Handbook - 2017 edition

<p class="reg-lead">FIFA's regulations on working with intermediaries — the system that in 2015 replaced the agents' licence and entrusted the regulation of relations with intermediaries to the national associations.</p>

<table class="reg-facts">
<tr><td>Subject matter</td><td>Clubs' and players' engagement of <b>intermediaries</b> in transfers</td></tr>
<tr><td>Length</td><td>15 pages</td></tr>
<tr><td>Status</td><td>The intermediaries system has been replaced by the <b>FIFA Football Agent Regulations</b></td></tr>
</table>

<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>What these regulations determine</h2>
<p>Until 2015 FIFA operated a licensing system for agents; it then abandoned that system and put in its place regulations on working with "intermediaries". The fundamental change was that FIFA ceased to issue individual licences and instead regulated the <strong>conduct of the club and the player</strong> in their relations with the intermediary, leaving enforcement to the national associations.</p>
<p>The principal axes of these regulations are: registration of intermediaries with the national association, the obligation to disclose the relationship and the sums paid, the prohibition of conflicts of interest, and the restrictions relating to minors.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec hi">
<h2>Why this document is no longer the governing text</h2>
<p>In practice the intermediaries system did not produce the result FIFA expected: devolving enforcement to the national associations led to inconsistent practice and the intended transparency was not achieved. FIFA then returned to a licensing system and enacted the <strong>FIFA Football Agent Regulations</strong>, which once again set the examination, the licence and the cap on commission at global level.</p>
<p>Consequently, the present value of this document is historical and interpretative: for cases concerning contracts concluded during the period in which these regulations were in force, the governing text is this document and not the Football Agent Regulations.</p>
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<div class="reg-sec">
<h2>Who this document matters to</h2>
<p>Clubs, players and intermediaries whose contracts date back to the period in which this system applied, and lawyers following disputes over commission and disclosure of the relationship. In every case, the first step is to determine on what date the contract was concluded and which system governed it.</p>
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Notes related to the tag مقررات_فیفا

FIFA National Dispute Resolution Chamber Recognition Principles

FIFA Commentary on the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players

COVID-19: Football Regulatory Issues

FIFA Club Licensing Handbook

FIFA Regulations on Working with Intermediaries