On 1 January 2026, FIFA introduced a new threshold in Article 12(4) of the FIFA Clearing House (FCH) Regulations:
“Entitlements to training rewards of an amount lower than EUR 100 (or the equivalent in another currency) will be considered discarded and will not be included in an Allocation Statement.”
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been sitting and thinking…
Discarded ? 🤨
FIFA’s explanation was that some payments are tiny — even less than €1 — and processing them slows down the system. So, to “streamline operations”, anything under €100 will no longer be included in Allocation Statements.
On the surface, it sounds efficient (for the FCH), but when you work closely with African clubs and academies, like I do in Nigeria and Ghana, you immediately see the gap between the boardroom logic and the grassroots reality.
…but here’s the truth:
€100 is not a small amount in Nigeria.
At today’s exchange rate, €100 is roughly ₦160,000.
Many academies feed their players on ₦3,000 per day per player
€100 can buy three pairs of football boots (at ₦50,000 each)
€100 can buy malaria medication for players who fall sick
€100 can buy 3,000+ sachets of water (₦50 per sachet) — and hydration is a daily battle in our climate
These are not luxuries. They are the basics.
So when someone in a boardroom in Zurich decides that anything under €100 is “too small” to process, it brings me back to a question I’ve asked many times:
Who is in the room representing the (African) grassroots when these decisions are made?
Because if someone who truly understood the realities of African academies were present, you would expect them to raise the obvious points:
⚫️ €100 is not insignificant everywhere ✅
⚫️ These payments matter in developing football nations ✅
⚫️ Discarding them removes income from the bottom of the pyramid ✅
⚫️ There are practical alternatives — aggregation, annual batching, or simply keeping the old club‑to‑club system for payments below €100 ✅
Instead, we get a rule that simplifies administration at the top while quietly stripping value from the bottom.
I’m sure there are others — South American academies, parts of Asia, the Caribbean — who feel the impact too. But I can only speak confidently about what I know and what I’ve seen firsthand, which is why I highlight African academies specifically.
Although I can understand the desire for efficiency, I still believe the €100 threshold is too high. Something closer to €20 would have been far more realistic for the grassroots. Alternatively, FIFA could have simply kept the old club‑to‑club system for payments under €100 and only processed €100+ amounts through the Clearing House. That would have reduced their administrative burden without deleting money that belongs to grassroots clubs.
What are your thoughts? 🤔
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