Third-party influence
Third-party influence is an outside party gaining the ability to affect a club’s independence, policies or team performance in employment and transfer matters, which the regulations prohibit.
The rule is separate from third-party ownership and catches something different. Ownership is about money from a future transfer. Influence is about control: no club may enter into a contract enabling a counter club, or any third party, to acquire the ability to influence its independence, its policies or the performance of its teams in employment and transfer-related matters.
That wording is deliberately broad. It reaches arrangements that never mention a fee, including clauses between clubs that constrain team selection, and agreements that give an outside party a say over who a club may sign or sell.
The FIFA Disciplinary Committee may impose disciplinary measures on clubs that do not observe it.
Worked example
A clause preventing a loaning club from fielding the player against the club that loaned them out is the kind of arrangement this article is aimed at, because it hands one club influence over another club's team.
Source: FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, January 2026 edition, art. 18bis