Overdue payables
Overdue payables are amounts a club has delayed paying to a player or another club for more than 30 days without a prima facie contractual basis, which may be sanctioned.
Clubs are required to meet their financial obligations to players and to other clubs on the terms written into contracts and transfer agreements. Where a due payment is delayed beyond 30 days without a prima facie contractual basis for the delay, the club may be sanctioned.
The qualifier matters. A genuine, arguable contractual reason for withholding takes the matter out of this article and into an ordinary dispute. What the provision catches is the club that simply has not paid.
It is worth separating from the player’s own termination right. Overdue payables is a disciplinary route about a club’s conduct; two months of unpaid salary plus a written default notice is what gives the player just cause to leave. They can arise from the same facts and are not the same thing.
Worked example
A transfer instalment falls due on 1 March and is still unpaid on 5 April with no contractual reason given.
That is more than 30 days without a prima facie basis, and the selling club has a route that does not depend on the player doing anything at all.
Source: FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, January 2026 edition, art. 12bis