FC Rabotnicki at the 29th ECA General Assembly in Budapest: Memorandum of cooperation with FIFA signed

Football club Rabotnicki, represented by general secretary Nenad Monev, is an active participant in the 29th General Assembly of the European Club Association (ECA) held in Budapest. At it, ECA President Nasser Al-Khelaifi and FIFA President Gianni Infantino signed a renewed Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation between FIFA and ECA.

The new long-term agreement strengthens the relationship between FIFA, as football’s governing body worldwide, and ECA, as the sole body representing the interests of European clubs. It will allow ECA and FIFA to build on their close cooperation, which has existed since ECA’s birth 15 years ago, now with a new mandate until 31 December 2030, bringing long-term stability between national teams and club competitions.

The MoU expands and deepens the existing cooperation between ECA and FIFA on matters of critical importance to men’s and women’s club football, including the calendar, the release of players in the national teams, the Club Benefit Program which allows clubs to share in the revenue from the national teams competitions in exchange for the release of players and the insurance program that protects clubs in the event of injury to players while on national team duty.

The club benefits program, for example, which has historically compensated all clubs who release players for the Men’s World Cup and was a key achievement of the previous MOU, will now increase from $209 million for the FIFA World Cup finals tournaments in 2018 and 2022 to $355 million for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups.
ECA also had a humanitarian action to donate funds to the areas affected by catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.