FIFPro said on Thursday that footballers "should be released from their contracts as soon as they have gone 30 days without being paid," according to Brian Homewood of REUTERS. FIFPro said in a statement, "FIFPro is negotiating a change to the regulations that would see a club sanctioned and a player entitled to terminate his contract and be free to seek employment elsewhere after 30 days of non-payment." FIFPro Secretary General Theo van Seggelen said that "footballers were entitled to be paid punctually, just like employees in other professions." He said, "Respect for contracts and treating professional footballers like any other employee in a normal workplace environment is not too much to ask. That is what we have on the table here, a proposal that holds clubs accountable after 30 days of non-payment" (REUTERS, 11/6). The AP reported currently, clubs "can be 90 days late paying without consequences." The issue of late wage payments "has affected the integrity of competitions, and unpaid players are regarded as more vulnerable to approaches by match fixers." A FIFPro survey of players with eastern European clubs to learn more about match-fixing found 41% who responded said that "clubs did not pay on time" (AP, 11/7).
