“The Guyana Football Federation’s (GFF) mid-season transfer window is a crucial opportunity for clubs and players to make sometimes life-changing decisions about their football careers and therefore, we take this opportunity to encourage the relevant stakeholders to initiate and process transfers in a timely manner to avoid the usual last-minute requests.”
This remark was made by Ian Alves, GFF’s Competitions Director, as the one-month transfer window opened on January 1 to accommodate player transfers, both locally and internationally.
Alves urged both clubs and players to educate themselves about the transfer process prior to engaging same so as to enable them to facilitate the transfer in a quick and efficient manner.
A Domestic Transfer, in order to be considered procedurally correct, must involve the Former Club, the Player, the Former Regional Member Association (RMA), the New Club, and the New RMA (in the case of a transfer out of the Former Association).
Unless and until all of these entities are informed and involved, and provided that none of these raise any legitimate concerns with the attempted transfer and refuse to concur or approve the transfer, the transfer is incomplete.
The New Club has the recourse of seeking the intervention of the relevant RMA, or subsequently the GFF, if it is of the view that the transfer is being unjustly hindered by the Former Club or the relevant RMA.
In the case of international transfers, the process begins at the new club, which requests and initiates the process via the International Transfer Matching System (ITMS) following discussions with the former clubs.
The process for the Domestic Transfer is as follows:
- The new club confirms the player has an interest in the transfer and, if so, the new club makes contact with the former club to negotiate the transfer agreement
- If it’s agreed upon, the new club collects the transfer document from the relevant RMA
- Each entity involved fills and signs their allocated part of the form; namely, the player, the former club, and the new club.
- The form is then submitted to the relevant RMA, which confirms the authenticity of the involvement of each party
- Everything being in order, the RMA approves the transfer and gives a copy to the new club
- If the player is being transferred across RMA, the new club takes their copy of the form to their new RMA so that the player can be registered within that RMA and cleared for participation as a player of that club. It is important to note that the GFF is the RMA for Elite Clubs.
