On Wednesday morning Werder Bremen received the final decision of the judge from the ‘FIFA Player's Status Committee', Slim Aloulou, which states that all players under 23 years of age, who are nominated for the Olympic Games in Beijing, must be released by their respective clubs.
“We are now awaiting written confirmation of the reason for this decision, which we expect to reach our lawyers by Thursday. We can then discuss how we shall proceed. We are very interested in the exact details as to why this particular judgement was made,” remarked the clubs general manager Klaus Allofs on the news of the latest development.
Allofs wishes to wait for the official judgement before any decisions will be made on how Werder Bremen plan to react: “We will see then if there is any point in up-holding our complaint with the CAS (international sport commission),” explained Allofs, who has achieved at least one of the goals he had set himself: “We wanted a clear regulation, which applies to all clubs. That would appear to be the case now. What remains unclear is just why this decision wasn’t met four months ago when we initially approached FIFA.”
Allofs is now determined to ensure that regulations on the mandatory release of players will be upheld beyond the 2008 Olympic Games: “It is our duty to see to it that FIFA set very definite release modalities for the future. The sort of uncertainty that we have experienced over the past few months is no good for any club or any player.”
One definite decision has been made by the Green-Whites. The Serbian international Dusko Tosic, who has been nominated to partake in the Olympic Games, will fly out and join the Serbian Olympic Squad on Thursday, 31.07.2008. The release of the player by Werder Bremen is subject to revocation by the club should a relative judgement be met by the CAS.