“Spanish football, through their clubs, supports the policy of protecting minors, and the concern for their development and for their training”, the league said in a statement in response to FIFA’s ban on Thursday.
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The Spanish clubs have denied doing anything wrong and said they will appeal FIFA’s bans.
Players under the age of 18 can not complete an global transfer unless one of three exceptions is met. If a player’s parents are moving to the country of the new club for reasons other than football, the player in question is aged between 16 and 18 and the move is between two clubs in European Union nations or the player lives within 50km of the border to the country they are moving to, the transfer will be sanctioned by Fifa. In addition, Atletico have been fined with a 900,000 Swiss francs while Real have been hit with a 360,000 Swiss francs.
The suspension does not come into effect until after the current January window which will end on the 31.
Under the ban, both teams will still be able to sell current players.
However, the punishment for these two clubs doesn’t stop there.
Both teams said they will appeal FIFA’s decision.
Barcelona employed a similar tactic in 2015 to successful affect. Though their appeal to CAS was to be rejected it delayed the implementation of the ban until after the summer transfer window.
“They have 20 days to sign players if they really think they can not delay the bans, but I don’t think they will do that with the biggest names”, Balague explained on Sky Sports.
Zinedine Zidane has been named the head coach of Real Madrid.
This transfer window could just be about to get a whole lot more interesting if either club tries to shoehorn in deals ahead of their two-window bans.
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.
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Real have sacked two Champions League-winning coaches in Carlo Ancelotti and Rafael Benitez in the past seven months, as well as being thrown out of the Copa del Rey for fielding an ineligible player. The Blaugrana however, took full advantage of the transfer window before the ban to sign players like Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic, who played a huge role in their treble winning season.
