Hedge funds are "trying to hold on to a piece" of football's $4B player transfer market even as FIFA "prepares to shut them out," according to Onoszko & Duff of BLOOMBERG. Warsaw-based asset manager Skarbiec TFI SA Dir for Strategy Maciej Podgorski said that the firm raised $1.6M to "invest in the transfer policy of Poland's Legia Warsaw." Meanwhile, London-based advisory firm Football Finance Group has proposed a model on its website where lenders "would receive a bonus payment based on the size of a club's future transfer-fee income." A report in '13 by KPMG said that investors owned stakes valued at $1.2B in the trading rights of 1,100 players in European football. FIFA "maintains outside investors can interfere with how clubs are run and is banning the deals" starting Friday. Lawinsport.com CEO Sean Cottrell said that the organization will "find it difficult to police the ban." Cottrell: "It's unchartered territory, and people will push the boundaries until they're told they can't. Lawyers and accountants are trying to find new mechanisms and it's going to evolve as the market evolves." FIFA on Dec. 22 told its members that after May 1, "clubs can no longer sell future transfer compensation rights to third parties." FIFA did not immediately "set any sanctions for clubs that break the rule." FIFA's circular said that teams can "let existing agreements expire." Malta-based fund Doyen Sports, which acquired €80M of player rights since '11, filed a complaint with a Paris court last month "seeking to overturn the ban." The court ordered football officials to give evidence on May 28, according to court papers. In February, the Spanish and Portuguese leagues "complained about the FIFA proposal to the European Union's competition unit." Some teams such as Dutch Eredivisie side FC Twente say that they "still need financing from funds as banks restricted lending." Twente Chair Aldo van der Laan: "Our situation isn’t very easy, we have to be creative, and this is the only way out" (BLOOMBERG, 4/29).
