With the expansion of the CONCACAF club tourney to a CONCACAF Champions League -- being played from August to April -- the issue of being "cup tied" is likely to come into play. I wanted to ask about specific details of this if anyone can help. From what I gather, a player who plays for one team in a particular competition (like the UEFA CL) cannot be transferred and then play for a different team in the same competition. But here are my questions: 1. Is this a FIFA rule? Or up to the individual confederations? IOW, could CONCACAF simply choose to not have cup-tied players? 2. I believe that cup-tied status does not apply across confederations, but only within one confederation, right? e.g. a player plays in the UEFA CL in fall 2008, can the same player play in the CCL in spring 2009? I think they could play for those separate teams, but I'm not 100%. 3. I'm assuming that players who are cup-tied refer to any stage of the competition (like prelim rounds). But they wouldn't necessarily apply to qualification tournaments to get into the competition -- for example, if a player plays in the CFU club tournament and qualifies for the CCL, they could still be eligible for a different team in the CCL. I'm just wondering how this situation will affect talent acquisition for any MLS teams that make it out of the group stage and into the knockout rounds in the spring since winter is the primary transfer window for new talent acquisition in MLS.
I believe it's a UEFA rule, not a FIFA one, but CONCACAF is likely to impose the same kind of thing. And if that happens, we may just see teams that qualify for the CCL being less active in the intra-MLS trade market until they're eliminated.
It's an interesting question especially since the CCL is going to be played in such a split season format. The Group Stage is in September and October during the Mexican and Costa Rican Apertura and right at the end of the MLS season but the Knockout Rounds are not until February, March and April during the Clausura and overlapping the beginning of the next MLS season. With the amount of player movement that happens in these leagues in the time between the two phases, Cup-tied rules are going to be much more difficult than they are in Europe where the Champions League is mostly played during a single season in most leagues.