Along with city rivals Atletico Madrid, Real have been punished after they were said to have broken Fifa’s regulations on the global transfer and registration of players under the age of 18, with all four of Zidane’s sons included as part of the rule breach.
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“Real Madrid will appeal this decision by Federation Internationale de Football Association to all sports authorities, considering it absolutely inadmissable”, Madrid said in a lengthy statement on their website in which they challenged the legitimacy of Fifa’s reasoning for the ban.
The sanction announced on Thursday means the clubs, now third and first respectively in Spain’s top division, will not be able to register new signings until July 2017 once the present transfer window closes at the end of the month.
“The decisions, which were notified to the parties concerned today, were made based on the specific elements of each case”.
With regards to players older than 12 years of age and younger than 18, has always complied with FIFA regulation requesting that the RFEF process (as they did) the corresponding authorisation from the FIFA Players’ Status Committee.
“It’s a great injustice and not being able to sign players is a problem but our squad is sufficient”, he said.
After FIFA handed down the ban, Barca appealed to both FIFA and CAS against the ruling but ultimately lost both bids.
“The document seems to affect 39 players, but regarding the registering of players, the club has only been sanctioned for eight as I understand”, Lopez Farre said.
Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea, Tottenham Hotspur hitman Harry Kane, Everton defender John Stones and even Juventus superstar Paul Pogba are all reportedly on Real Madrid’s transfer list of targets for the remaining 20 days in the January market – but La Liga expert Guillem Balague does not expect much movement from Los Blancos. The Catalan club signed players such as Arda Turan and Aleix Vidal after the ban took effect again, but couldn’t register them until this month.
Equally, there would be little chance of Chelsea or United persuading Atletico Madrid to sell them French winger Antoine Griezmann if Atletico could not sign anyone to replace him.
Those children at the event, which was also attended by Madrid’s mayor Manuela Carmena, received a Real Madrid football and bag filled with sporting material.
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During the two-and-a-half weeks they have left in January, the Real Madrid transfer machine is likely to go into overdrive.
