Fifa fines Arsenal over sell-on clauses for player transfers

Aden - Yasmine El Tohamy - Arsenal's Chuba Akpom leaps after scoring against Chivas Guadalajara during a friendly match in Carson, California, USA, on July 31, 2016, (AP file)

Arsenal were fined 40,000 Swiss francs ($42,300) by Fifa and warned about their conduct regarding player transfers after the club used variable sell-on clauses that were found to give it influence over other clubs.

In a previously undisclosed investigation, Fifa legal documents revealed the global governing body's concerns about the terms of the 2018 departures of Chuba Akpom to Greek club PAOK Thessaloniki and Joel Campbell to Italian side Frosinone Calcio. Arsenal would receive a bigger cut of the deal if Akpom and Campbell were subsequently sold to British clubs.

Arsenal placed sell-on clauses in the contracts to ensure it would receive 40% of the fee if Akpom was sold to a British club but only 30% from any other team.

Frosinone was also given an incentive to not later sell Campbell back to a British club as 30% of the fee would have to be paid to Arsenal. But the London club would receive only 25% of the transfer fee if Campbell was sold to a club elsewhere.

Arsenal entered "release permanently" into the Transfer Matching System and the discovery of details of the sell-on clauses led to Fifa's global transfers and compliance department opening an investigation into Arsenal in January.

The Fifa disciplinary committee then found Arsenal to be in violation of the rules for entering into contracts enabling it to influence other clubs and for failing to declare data in the TMS.

"The committee considers that, by the mere existence of these clauses, Frosinone and PAOK FC are influenced by Arsenal in employment and transfer-related matters," Fifa disciplinary committee member Thomas Hollerer wrote in the verdict document.

"The committee considers that the relevant clauses undoubtedly grant Arsenal the ability to influence in employment and transfer-related matters the independence, policies and the performance of PAOK FC and Frosinone's teams."

Arsenal told Fifa the transfer terms did not enable it to influence any transfer decisions by PAOK or Frosinone and said the English Football Association and Premier League were satisfied there was no breach of third-party influence rules.