Enforcement
These regulations were approved by the FIFA Council on 27 October 2017 and come into force on 1 January 2018. Zurich, 27 October 2017 For the FIFA Council President: Secretary General: Gianni Infantino Fatma Samoura
32. Annexe 1 Release of players to association teams
1. Principles for men’s football 1. Clubs are obliged to release their registered players to the representative teams of the country for which the player is eligible to play on the basis of his nationality if they are called up by the association concerned. Any agreement between a player and a club to the contrary is prohibited.
2. The release of players under the terms of paragraph 1 of this article is mandatory for all international windows listed in the international match calendar (cf. paragraphs 3 and 4 below) as well as for the final competitions of the FIFA World Cup™, the FIFA Confederations Cup and the championships for “A” representative teams of the confederations, subject to the relevant association being a member of the organising confederation.
3. After consultation with the relevant stakeholders, FIFA publishes the international match calendar for the period of four or eight years. It will include all international windows for the relevant period (cf. paragraph 4 below). Following the publication of the international match calendar only the final competitions of the FIFA World Cup™, the FIFA Confederations Cup and the championships for “A” representative teams of the confederations will be added.
4. An international window is defined as a period of nine days starting on a Monday morning and ending on Tuesday night the following week, which is reserved for representative teams’ activities. During any international window a maximum of two matches may be played by each representative team, irrespective of whether these matches are qualifying matches for an international tournament or friendlies. The pertinent matches can be scheduled any day as from Wednesday during the international window, provided that a minimum of two full calendar days are left between two matches (e.g. Thursday/Sunday or Saturday/Tuesday).