Full agreement moves step closer

Hopes rose yesterday that football's seemingly interminable wrangle about the future of transfers will finally be settled tomorrow after the world and European governing bodies reached agreement with the European Commission on a number of key issues.

At a meeting in Brussels between the FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his UEFA counterpart Lennart Johansson and the commission, all parties agreed that there would be two transfer windows in the European football season, one in the winter and another in the summer, and that players' contracts would be for a minimum of one year and a maximum of five years.

The agreement means footballers will have greater powers to change clubs and will almost certainly lead to a significant increase in their earnings with clubs spending more on wages than transfers.

However, other crucial areas have still to be agreed, such as the minimum length of time players have to honour contracts and what penalties players who unilaterally break contracts should face.

Tomorrow's meeting will also be attended by representatives of G14, the group of elite European clubs, and FIFPro, the international players' union. FIFPro remains concerned. It is opposed to making players honour contracts for a minimum three years and is at odds with FIFA and UEFA over how the compensation figure for a player should be reached.

Points Agreed

Contracts will last between one and five years, effectively meaning that a player cannot move twice in one season.

There will be Europe-wide transfer windows to allow movement of players.

An arbitration panel will decide how much compensation a club losing a player should receive.

Compensation in the form of training costs to be paid for players aged under 23 to take into account amount of time a club has spent on the development of the player concerned.

Issues to be resolved

How to protect young players aged 18 and under.

How to penalise the unilateral breaking of a player's contract and minimum length of time contracts must be honoured.

How to calculate compensation when one club buys a young player from another in the form of training costs.