Real and Atletico will be banned from registering new squad members for the next two transfer windows, meaning any players they do sign will be ineligible to play until the 2017/18 season.
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Atletico Madrid president Enrique Cerezo has slammed the club’s transfer ban but is confident it will not have a major impact.
Federation Internationale de Football Association has accused both Madrid clubs of breaching its rules on the worldwide transfer and registering players under the age of 18. In addition to the transfer sanctions Atletico has been fined 900,000 Swiss Francs and Real Madrid 360,000 Swiss Francs.
However, they are free to sign players for the remainder of the current window, which runs until the end of the month.
The committee said both clubs are to serve a transfer ban. The only way round the ban would be for Real and Atletico to fast-track all their planned transfer business and buy players in the remaining two weeks of this transfer window.
Real Madrid director general Jose Angel Sanchez says he expects many more European clubs to be hit by transfer bans for breaking youth transfer regulations – and that cases are already advanced against some Premier League clubs.
Sanchez labelled Fifa’s decision as “totally unexpected” and “absolutely unjustified”, and explained why the Madrid club believe they are innocent.
The Madrid giants have a number of players on loan at other clubs but they will not suffer as a effect of the ban.
The news is just the latest institutional embarrassment for Real Madrid in the past 12 months and comes just days after appointing French legend Zinedine Zidane as coach.
“The investigations concerned minor players who were involved and participated in competitions with the clubs over various periods between 2007 and 2014 (Atlético de Madrid) and between 2005 and 2014 (Real Madrid)”.
The Camp Nou outfit did sign Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal in the summer of 2015, but were unable to register the duo until January 2016.
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Real’s great rivals Barcelona, standing second in La Liga, were handed the same penalty in April 2014 for also breaching rules on the transfer of under-18 players. They will be facing the ban for a few years.
