The Light Was Yellow Sir
Well-Known Member
The Webster rule is a complete non starter and should be banished from the thread. It has since largely been superseded by the ’Matuzalém case‘ from 2008 and effectively renders Webster as a hugely reckless gamble with an completely unknown downside. Despite what people post, there is no magic formula that generates a compensation number courtesy of FIFA. What’s more even, if/when FIFA sets a number the amount is subject to an appeal to CAS, and then the Swiss Federal Court.
Although an appeal has yet to go further than that, it would be very possible for the wronged party - Barcelona- to take the legal process even further whilst seeking injunctions all the way along.
It also means that if Messi (and City) decided to trigger the termination of the player’s deal with Barcelona without cause, it could take years to settle and at a cost that nobody can predict, which is one helluva risk to take for a 33-year-old.
NB. The Matuzalém case involved a player at Shahktar, ’doing a Webster’ and turning up at Zaragoza. Shahktar duly went to FIFA who set a compensation fee of €6.8m. Shahktar then appealed to CAS and the compensation was increased to €11.9m. The player and Zaragoza were found to be ’jointly liable’ and the decision was upheld by the Swiss federal court. It took over 2 years as well.
