The news that both Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid had been banned from signing new players until 2018 due to 'breaches relating to the international transfer and registration of players under the age of 18' was deemed by many football fans to be deserved, but the overwhelming worry was that a simple appeal would allow both clubs to stockpile transfers in the summer, just like Barcelona did when they came out of their transfer ban will no negative effects at all.
And sure enough, here we are.
Spanish football expert Sid Lowe has confirmed that both clubs had seen their sentence 'put on hold' which allows them to resume business as normal, and serve their suspension at a later date when they can easily cater for it.
RM and Atletico Madrid both get sentence put on temporary hold by FIFA, to be served later. In other words, they can sign in summer.
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) January 29, 2016
This is yet another example of the absolute farce that FIFA has become.
A punishment is handed out, and in the face of widespread concern that the ban will be suspended in order to mitigate the severity of the punishment almost entirely.. That is exactly what has happened.
We were told this time that it would be different, that the ban being imposed in January would not allow signings in the summer even with an appeal, but this suspension laughs in the face of that reasonable idea.
After clearly seeing how little effect this had on Barcelona, who managed to sign both Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic before the ban took place, then had Alex Vidal and Arda Turan patiently waiting for the ban to lift at it's conclusion, they have allowed Real and Atletico the same privilege.
It's all far too predictable.
