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24th November 2020
03:22pm GMT
As reported by the Mirror, the root of this dispute centres around Fifpro, the international players' union, and their backing of agent reforms. Bale's agent Jonathan Barnett and Ibrahimović's agent Mino Raiola are understood to oppose the proposed reforms.
The reforms were presented by FIFA at the start of this year, with the governing body publishing a statement saying:
"The Football Stakeholders Committee and the FIFA Council unanimously endorsed last year a series of reform proposals concerning football agents with the aim to protect the integrity of football and prevent abuses.
"These measures were the result of an extensive consultation process with stakeholders (players, clubs, leagues and member associations), as well as agents who were invited to several consultation meetings.
"The overarching objective here is to improve transparency, protect player welfare, enhance contractual stability and also raise professional and ethical standards.
"In other words, to eliminate or at least reduce the abusive and excessive practices which unfortunately have existed in football."
Several of the game's most powerful agents, including Jorge Mendes and the aforementioned Raiola and Barnett were reported to be angered by the proposals.
Barnett publicly declared: “We want fairness, FIFA should recognise us and treat us in a proper manner.
“The truth is FIFA doesn’t know exactly what an agent does. No-one from FIFA has ever been to my office or had a conversation with me.
“If you ask players what they want, they are in favour of agents. There are never complaints about agents’ fees from players.
“We will try until the last minute to resolve the problem but rest assured, if necessary we will go to every court in the world.”
An EA spokesperson told Mirror Football: "EA SPORTS FIFA is the world’s leading football video game, and to create an authentic experience year after year we work with numerous leagues, teams and individual talent to secure the rights of player likeness to include in our game.
"One of those is a long-standing relationship with the global representative of professional football players, FIFPro, who partner with a number of licensors to negotiate deals that benefit the players and their unions."Explore more on these topics:
