Serie A club Spezia has been banned from four transfer windows, starting in January next year, after violating FIFA’s rules on signing minors, world football’s governing body said on Friday.
Spezia, who competed in the Italian top flight for the first time last season, was also fined 500,000 Swiss francs (USD543,832) for the offense, which involved signing minors from Nigeria.
“The FIFA Disciplinary Committee found that Spezia Calcio violated Article 19 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) by bringing several Nigerian minors into Italy for the purpose of bypassing the above RSTP article as well as the National Immigration Law was,” a FIFA statement read.
“The protection of minors is a key objective of the regulatory framework governing the football transfer system.”
Former Barcelona midfielder Thiago Motta was appointed Spezia manager last week, while the club was bought by American investors in February. He said he would appeal against the decision.
“We are shocked by FIFA’s decision to implement this heavy transfer ban,” Spezia president Philippe Raymond Playtech Jr. said in a statement on Friday.
“The new ownership had no role in the alleged breaches. We will appeal and take appropriate measures to ensure that our team remains competitive for years to come.”
International transfers are only allowed if the player is over the age of 18, unless one of the following criteria is met:
- The player’s parents move for non-football-related reasons.
- Transfer takes place within the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area (EEA) and the player is over 16.
- The player resides no more than 50 km from the boundary and no more than 50 km from the club boundary.
- The player flees his native country for humanitarian reasons.
- The player is a student and moves to another country temporarily for educational reasons without his parents in order to start an exchange program.
It is unclear how many Nigerian players Spezia signed, but the alleged irregularities occurred between 2013 and 2018.
This is not the first time FIFA has issued such a ban.
In 2019, FIFA banned Chelsea from two transfer windows after the Premier League club violated Article 19 in the case of 29 minor players.
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