MUMBAI: The Scottish Football Association recently issued the first ever electronic International Transfer Certificate (ITC) in favour of the French Football Association, thereby helping world football governing body Fifa realise its objective of better regulating international football transfers by switching over to an electronic system.

Associations of buying and selling clubs are required to certify deals by fax which leaves Fifa inundated with paperwork every trading season. Switching to an electronic system would drastically speed up the process and allow Fifa to process the transaction with greater ease. Fifa, therefore, set up a company, Fifa Transfer Marketing System GmnH to carry out this task.

The new system on the internet provides clubs with the kind of modern electronic technology required to keep pace with the volume of transfers in today's market. The system will enable bank transfers to be carried out strictly between the clubs involved. The electronic issuing of ITCs will not only reduce the amount of paperwork, but also facilitate and accelerate the processes involved and, above all, make transfers more transparent.

“Fifa has the responsibility and the task of preserving the values of the game and its competitive integrity. The transfer matching system (TMS) is an important tool to achieve this. The increased transparency allows us to better safeguard the protection of minors,” emphasised Fifa president Sepp Blatter.

The objective of the TMS is to make sure that football’s authorities have more details available to them on each and every international transfer, and on the other hand, to increase the transparency of individual transactions, in turn increasing the credibility of the entire transfer system.

“The transfer matching system represents a revolution in the administration of international football transfers. While the legal aspects remain the same, the TMS will centrally control all international player transfers by recording all relevant data. From a legal perspective, it is one of the most thrilling projects Fifa has ever realised. The first-ever electronic ITC is a major step towards the implementation of the TMS,” Fifa's director (legal affairs) Marco Villiger explained.

As of today, 108 associations (including all 53 Uefa associations) and 1,263 clubs are participating in the Fifa programme, which encompasses 4,312 recorded transfers. The global roll-out of the TMS will be completed for all 208 associations by March 2010. From 1 October 2010, only electronic ITCs will be accepted for the transfer of professional players, thus ensuring complete transparency.