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Infantino Refloats Idea of Using Algorithm to Set Soccer Player Transfer Fees

President of FIFA Gianni Infantino looks on during the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2024 at the Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium in Ebimpe, Abidjan, on January 13, 2024. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)
President of FIFA Gianni Infantino looks on during the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2024 at the Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium in Ebimpe, Abidjan, on January 13, 2024. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)
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Infantino Refloats Idea of Using Algorithm to Set Soccer Player Transfer Fees

President of FIFA Gianni Infantino looks on during the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2024 at the Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium in Ebimpe, Abidjan, on January 13, 2024. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)
President of FIFA Gianni Infantino looks on during the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2024 at the Alassane Ouattara Olympic Stadium in Ebimpe, Abidjan, on January 13, 2024. (Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP)

FIFA wants to open debate on setting soccer transfer fees by algorithm instead of the historic way of two clubs negotiating a market value price for contracted players.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino used his address to its annual law conference that closed Friday in Tokyo to refloat an idea that has circulated for several years about reforms in the global transfer market that is now worth more than $10 billion annually, The Associated Press reported.
“Now more than ever it is fundamental for us to talk about these and other topics,” Infantino told soccer lawyers.
“For example, to discuss about the possibility to use an algorithm to estimate the fair value of transfer fees in order to increase transparency in the transfer system and help the football stakeholders,” the FIFA leader said.
FIFA spends millions of dollars each year helping fund a masters course and soccer research unit at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland which says it has worked on a transfer value algorithm since 2010.
The International Center for Sports Studies (CIES) currently puts values of at least 250 million euros ($272 million) on Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham and Vinícius Júnior, plus Manchester City forward Erling Haaland. The ranking assumes valuations for players if they have at least three years left on their contract.
The CIES research method weighs factors including the player’s age, length of contract and international record, and the context of their clubs and global economy.
Lower values are placed on the top-ranked players judged by the soccer industry website Transfermarkt.

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Olympic Tennis Players Return to Red Clay of Paris' Roland Garros

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
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Olympic Tennis Players Return to Red Clay of Paris' Roland Garros

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

The competition surface doesn’t change for most Olympic sports. A pool’s a pool. A track’s a track. A wrestling mat’s a mat. And so on. Tennis? That’s a whole other story, with tournaments contested on clay, hard or grass courts — and now there’s a shift for the Paris Games.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the tennis competition at an Olympics will be held on red clay, which means players who recently made the adjustment from the dirt at the French Open in early June to grass at Wimbledon in early July will need to reverse course again in short order, The Associated Press reported.
The “terre battue” at Roland Garros used for the French Open hosts Olympic matches starting on July 27 — two weeks after Wimbledon wrapped up with singles titles for Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain — and the transition back to that site is more concerning to some athletes than others.
“That’ll definitely be interesting. But everyone’s kind of doing it. We’ll all be in the same boat,” said Jessica Pegula, an American ranked in the top 10 who is expected to play singles, women's doubles with US Open champion Coco Gauff and perhaps mixed doubles, too. “I usually don't struggle too much with switching. And I like how the courts play there. It might be easier than some other places we play on clay. When the weather is warm in Paris, it plays pretty true. There’s a good speed. There’s not a lot to get used to.”
For her, maybe.
“It’s going to be the first time for me, going from grass to clay," said Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the 2022 Wimbledon champion and a semifinalist there this month. "It’s not easy. Physically, it’s not easy, (or) mentally.”
One additional factor on some players' minds: There will be another brief turnaround after the Olympics to prepare for the move to the hard courts ahead of the US Open, which starts in late August. That's less than a month after the medals are awarded in France.
“It’s awful for the schedule,” said Taylor Fritz, Pegula's teammate for the United States and someone who just reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club. “It makes absolutely no sense. It screws everything up, for sure.”
Tennis becomes a different sport, in some key ways, depending on where it's being played.
“You have to adapt to it. ... It’s going to be weird, obviously, going back on the clay quickly,” said Cam Norrie, who will represent Britain at the Olympics, “but we’re changing surface and changing variables all the time.”
Clay is softer and slower, which can dull the power on serves and groundstrokes and create longer exchanges, putting a premium on stamina, while the grittiness can magnify the effect of heavy topspin. Grass is speedier and balls bounce lower. Hard courts tend to produce truer, midrange bounces and generally will reward those who go for point-ending shots.
The biggest difference among them might be the footwork. Clay requires sliding. Grass is more about choppy steps, to avoid slipping. Hard courts generally do not cause as many falls as either of the others.
“For a clay-court player, the adjustment’s not that hard,” 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang said. “For (people) that have grown up playing on the surface, you just know the surface so well.”
So someone like Iga Swiatek, who has won four of the past five French Opens, should feel comfortable and confident on clay, by far her best surface.
The same goes, of course, for Rafael Nadal, a 14-time champion at Roland Garros. Novak Djokovic has won at least three Grand Slam titles at each of the sport's biggest events, the only man to do so, and the adjustments required come rather naturally to him.
Then again, Alcaraz, whose title at Roland Garros this year made him, at 21, the youngest man to win a major trophy on clay, hard and grass courts, had this to say about going from London to Paris: “It’s not easy to change surfaces in just a week.”