Feyenoord In Trouble Over Tierro’s Transfer

The management of a Kumasi-based Colts club, Kumapim Babies has threatened court action against Feyenoord Academy Football Club for failing to pay the training compensation for solidarity contribution on William Kwabena Tiero who is currently featuring for Academica de Coimbra in Portugal. According to the management of Kumapim Babies, they had not benefited from the transfer of William Tiero who started his football career with the colts club before he played for other clubs in the country, including Liberty Professionals and Feyenoord Academy. The management noted that Feyenoord registered Tiero as a floating player without requesting any floating letter from the player and later transferred him to Liberty before he was finally transferred to the Portuguese club. According to them, Feyenood, therefore gained tremendously from all the transactions without considering the Colts Club that nurtured him, and questioned why a team like Feyenood should treat Colts Clubs in such a shabby manner. A letter issued and signed by the Chairman of Kumapim Babies, Mr Yahaya Dramani noted that notwithstanding the fact that Liberty Professionals who transferred William Tiero to Academica de Coimbra paid a percentage of the money accrued from the transfer to Feyenoord, the latter refused to honour their obligation by also paying part of their money received from Liberty to Kumapim Babies which nurtured William Tiero as dictated by the regulations of FIFA, CAF and the GFA. The letter, which was copied to the President of the GFA, the Chairman of the Player status Committee, William Tiero, the Chairman of Liberty Professionals and the Portugal Football Federation, indicated that Feyenoord received as much as $10,000 as local transfer from Liberty Professionals as training fees when William Tiero was transferred . Mr Dramani further indicated that when they contacted the management of Feyenoord to make good their obligation of transferring the training fee of Tiero to Kumapim Babies as regulated by FIFA and other governing bodies, Feyenoord replied that they registered Tiero in 1999 as a floating player. Referring to article 30:4 of the GFA rules, Mr Dramani said “Colts players do not float until after three years of leaving their Colts Clubs”, adding “a player shall be deemed to be floating if he has been so declared by the player status committee only”. He questioned of Feyenoord on the action they took when they alleged that Tiero told them that he was a floating player, stressing “Article 34:2 on registration conditions of the bye laws says responsibility of truthfulness of information on players lies on the clubs and not the Ghana Football Association. So you should have investigated and asked for a floating letter from the player”. He said Clubs such as Feyenoord who are well versed in academies and rely much on Colts Clubs to feed such academies are supposed to support Colts clubs but not to cheat them as is being done to Kumapim Babies. “ You have benefited three times from Tiero- transferring him to Liberty, Liberty transferring him to Academica de Coimbra and receiving a training fee from Liberty without any reference to the Colts Club that nurtured him. It was time the GFA also intervened to force Feyenoord to honour their obligations to Kumapim Babies before things got out of hands because we would be forced to go to court as a last result if Feyenood refused to pay what is due Kumapim Babies”, the statement said.