Explaining Argentina’s new youth rule that would have barred Lionel Messi from the national team

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has approved a measure which prevents footballers from receiving international call-ups if they move abroad without first signing a professional contract at an Argentine club.

The policy is designed to protect the country’s clubs from losing young players and to incentivise the development of academy players.

The AFA says the move is due to “several recent cases (with) the application of ‘patria potestad'” — the nation’s parental authority laws, which include giving parents the right to “manage their children’s assets”.

In practice, the law allows parents to decide where their child signs a professional contract, without the agreement of their current club, at which they will have a non-binding youth-team agreement.

Footballers can sign a professional contract from the age of 16 in Argentina — that varies between nations — while the ‘patria potestad’ system is in place until the age of 18.

That means the club at which the player came through would only be compensated with a training development fee, rather than a transfer fee, should they leave before signing a professional contract.

The AFA’s measure will not prevent this from happening but, by ruling those players out of consideration for Argentina’s national teams, it is designed to discourage it.

“After discussing various aspects of these situations, in support of defending the interests of the clubs, it was unanimously decided by those present that those players would not be called up to join the squads of the various national teams,” the AFA added.

Why is the AFA doing this now?

The move is primarily to discourage Argentine players from moving abroad before they sign a professional contract with a local club.

Argentina’s clubs have lost highly-rated youth-team players to European clubs before they signed a professional contract. The most high-profile case is that of Lionel Messi, who joined Barcelona’s youth system from Newell’s Old Boys aged 13.

TyC Sports has reported that the case which accelerated this motion was that of Lucas Scarlato, a 16-year-old midfielder who left River Plate, one of the country’s biggest clubs, to join Italian side Parma. Scarlato, who has not yet played a senior club match but has been selected up to under-16 level for Argentina, had not signed a professional contract at River.

“I care about him (Scarlato) and I wish him the best, but he had the best situation at River,” River’s director of youth football Gabriel Rodriguez told DSports in December. “I didn’t think it was right that he left the club when he did. Moreover, these football agents are a problem in football because they seek their own benefits. They’re a necessary evil in football.”

Scarlato joined River at the age of six. He was well thought of within the club and captained their under-16 side. When he turned 16 last April, River initiated talks with Scarlato, his family and his agent, Martin Ariel Guastadisegno.

Following Scarlato’s move to Parma, River Plate have told The Athletic they have filed a formal complaint with FIFA against Guastadisegno, claiming his actions contravened FIFA’s regulations for the behavior of player representatives.

Speaking to The Athletic, Guastadisegno said: “I was the target of slander, insults, and character assassination (by River Plate) — a whole mess of situations that I do not deserve because I am a football agent.

“I do not work for clubs; I work for the players. My player and his family asked me to find the best possible option for him. That is exactly what I did.”

In River’s statement confirming Scarlato’s exit, the club said it “appreciates and thanks Parma Calcio for their professionalism and respectful treatment during the negotiation process of the agreement.”

How would this have affected the current Argentina team?

Seven players who have been called up to the Argentina senior squad since the September international window would not qualify for selection under this rule.

Messi, the national team’s record scorer and appearance-holder, is the most prominent, alongside World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who swapped Independiente’s youth system for Arsenal in 2010. Giuliano Simeone joined Atletico Madrid from River Plate’s youth system in 2019.

Other Argentina players who would have been impacted include midfielders Emiliano Buendia and Enzo Barrenechea, along with forwards Joaquin Panichelli and Valentin Carboni.

Is the move legal?

Samuel Cuthbert, barrister at 4 New Square who specialises in sports and commercial law, says: “FIFA imposes rules for the eligibility of players to play representative football to all associated national governing bodies, of which the Argentine FA is one.

“Those rules deal with complex issues such as what constitutes nationality, sporting nationality, changing nationality, statelessness etc, and all for the purposes of selection eligibility.

“FIFA does not, however, prescribe a selection policy for associated national governing bodies, and there is no prohibition in the FIFA statutes on limiting eligibility to players playing within a particular league or in a particular country.”

What has the reaction been?

“There are representatives who do things that harm the clubs, and the measure we took is the right one to protect our youth players,” said Nicolas Russo, president of Argentine club Lanus, after the meeting, via TyC Sports.

Gabriel Heinze, now a first-team coach at Arsenal who previously played for Manchester United and Argentina, previously called on football authorities to address patria potestad.

“In the vast majority of cases, the agents are to blame for these things happening,” Heinze said in 2020, via TyC Sports. “The clubs are the ones that suffer the most, since they train the player and then the parents make the decision, leaving the club exposed.

“FIFA needs to step in and, from the top down, with its responsibilities and obligations, set a clear course. Clubs, who are great at developing players, are very upset because this is so important to them.”

Do any other countries have similar measures?

“The new ‘patria potestad’ rules from the Argentine FA are not greatly different to the policy employed by England Rugby since 2012, in which a player playing for a foreign club is not (unless exceptions apply) eligible for selection for the national team,” says barrister Cuthbert.

“Some have suggested in rugby that this could amount to a restraint of trade under English law, but no action has been brought to test that hypothesis.”

Could this set a global precedent?

Cuthbert explains: “Ultimately, the idea behind such policies is to ground players at home for the purported benefit of the domestic game, though inevitably some players will rule themselves out by playing abroad anyway, lured by big contracts at big clubs.

“The extent to which a policy like this succeeds in its aims will, in large part, turn on the success and/or prestige of the national team, and the loss to players in making themselves ineligible for selection by playing abroad contrary to the rules.”

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