UDUGO sports management Ltd

⚠️ Bridge Transfers in Football: A Hidden Threat to Grassroots Development

As someone who continuously advocates for grassroots players and clubs, it’s heartbreaking to read some of these stories of injustice. I recently came across the cases of Mikayil Faye and Baye Coulibaly, both involved in what are known as bridge transfers.

🔍 What Is a Bridge Transfer ⁉️

A bridge transfer occurs when a player is temporarily registered with an intermediary club—often for a very short period—before being transferred to their actual destination club. These transfers are typically not made for sporting reasons, but rather to circumvent FIFA regulations, especially those concerning training compensation and solidarity payments.

🔴 In Faye’s case, he disappeared from Diambars FC in Senegal and reappeared months later in Croatia, briefly playing for third-division club NK Kustošija before being transferred to Barcelona. Despite training him for years, Diambars received no compensation, while Kustošija and intermediaries profited 😢

🔴 In Coulibaly’s case, his former club reportedly received only €50,000 from a €1.95 million transfer fee. The majority of the profit went to the bridge club and agents 😢

📜 FIFA’s Ban on Bridge Transfers

In March 2020, FIFA introduced Article 5bis in its Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP).

This article presumes a bridge transfer has occurred if a player is transferred twice within 16 weeks, unless the clubs can prove the moves were made for genuine sporting reasons.

⚖️ Case Study: Paris FC & Angers SCO

In this case, the player signed his first professional contract with Paris FC on 1 July 2020, was registered on 6 July, and transferred to Angers SCO just six weeks later, on 18 August 2020.

FIFA concluded the move was not for sporting purposes, but to circumvent training compensation rules.

FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee sanctioned both clubs with:

💸 A CHF 30,000 fine

⛔ A transfer ban at national and international level for one registration period

This was the first time FIFA imposed sanctions for a bridge transfer violation since Article 5bis came into force.

🌍 Why This Matters

Bridge transfers disproportionately affect grassroots and African academies, who invest years in developing young talent only to be left uncompensated.

📣 Call to Action

As agents, clubs, and federations, we must uphold the principles of fair play and transparency.

To protect football development at the grassroots level, we must:

✅ Educate academies on FIFA’s Article 5bis and their rights

✅ Monitor transfers involving academy players more closely

✅ Report suspicious patterns to FIFA or national federations

Let’s protect the future of football by ensuring ethical and lawful transfer practices.

sports management
management Education

SCOUTING, Observing and selecting a football player is just a part of the job of scouting. It’s absolutely important to know how to write a detailed and intuitive report. We are going to analyze how and what to observe in Scouting, of course to become good Observers you need to be able to tell stories, and what we will have seen will assume a decisive importance in the concluding part of the negotiation which must be anticipatory towards the competing companies. If we could tell what we have seen and evaluated with our own eyes, conveying our feelings to the Sports Director or the Scouting Manager, we would have done a great job. The Relationship must be understandable and must be able to facilitate the task of the Scouting Manager or the Sports Director by enabling the two reference figures to understand as clearly as possible the type of player we are talking about, so that when the Manager He will read the report of a scout, he will feel like he watched the football player himself.

THE AREAS OF OBSERVATION

Which and how many are the observation areas? There are basically four: physics, technique, tactics and character. The advice is to follow this order, without changing its criteria. Obviously, if you analyze a young person in the youth sector, the technical area becomes more important and needs a more accurate description than the others. Starting from the first area, that of physics, we have to know which "voices" are part of it and then, even if in summary, we have to provide an explanation for each of them.

PHYSICAL AREA

In addition to height and weight, the physical type has to be defined: whether longiline, normaliline or breviline. In this regard, without going into medical - scientific specifications, for simplicity and to determine which of the three types the footballer belongs to we use height parameters. Not knowing its weight, you can indicate whether it is slim or of a solid - compact build. To make an example, we could start the relationship like this: "Attacker (or defender or midfielder), slim longline (or longline of massive-compact body), of particular height (if we observe that you exceed at least ninety meters).

The main names of the physical area to describe are:

Agility
Coordination
Force
Resistance
Velocity
Elevation (explosiveness).
It’s not enough to limit yourself to giving votes or simple values like insufficient, sufficient, good, excellent, but for each of them a judgment and the reason for your opinion must be expressed.

Only legends will know the owner of this legs, Guess right and Win 5k.

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THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SPORTS MANAGEMENT COMPANIES
Today’s level of sports achievement reflects the results of applying sports science, technology, and a great deal of management. This new perception influenced by the role of business in various sports organizations has set new requirements for attaining better results on an integral basis.

Every team uses managers, marketing professionals, accountants, and salespeople to expand their fan base, supervise athletes and make more money. These functions and processes are services sports management companies offer. Although sport management involves complex activities, it’s required to ensure that the sports business executions are more rational, efficient, and economical.

Here’s how sports management companies function to help the success of sports organizations.

HUMAN RESOURCE ACTIVITIES
Like every other management business, sports management company covers hiring or letting go of athletes. It coordinates every activity involved in negotiations, reaching contract agreements, and drawing up contracts for each athlete on the team. The company offers skilled professionals to work with a recruitment team and find young talent. With scholarships and other perks, they get the best college-level athletes into school programs to help them develop their skills. Also, sports management takes the chief role as agents to negotiate contracts for individual athletes and help them get into the most appropriate teams.

MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS
For athletes to reach the best position in their career, they need the assistance of management at various levels. The sport management company allies with the team coaches and trainers to ensure these talents have enough training resources to begin their journey to success. Aspects such as organizations of game schedules, food and service staff hiring, and arrangement of essentials like uniforms, training, and travel are duties the managers carry out. They implement appropriate solutions to eliminate destructive conflicts and even oversee sports facilities and run required maintenance. Beyond the primary organizations, sport management companies manage all aspects of athletic programs in colleges and high schools as athletic directors.

BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL PROCESSES
For every sports season, there’s a budget to take account of all operating costs, salaries of every athlete, coach, and staff member, and potential revenues for the sports organization. The sports management company provides financial professionals who take care of all business and financial operations. The managers consider all issues that may affect the set budget, such as potential playoff games, player injuries, or price changes in travel, equipment, and uniform costs. They also support ticket sales and merchandising. These professionals understand concepts like athletic valuation, which they employ while handling negotiations and vendor contracts.

MARKETING DUTIES
Sport marketing positions go beyond negotiation, advertisements, underwritings, or other activities to sell products. It represents the face of the team and the point of engagement with the media and local fans through interviews and press conferences. Sports managers function as marketing professionals or fundraisers. They serve as public relations personnel and facilitate a close bond between the team and their fans. However, all these don’t eliminate their responsibility towards bringing in corporate sponsors and endorsements.

(Oboche Peter ugo CEO Udugo sports management Ltd)