Cerezo hits out at ‘injustice’ of Atletico transfer ban

“Spanish football, through their clubs, supports the policy of protecting minors, and the concern for their development and for their training”, the league said in a statement in response to FIFA’s ban on Thursday.

“Spanish football, through their clubs, supports the policy of protecting minors, and the concern for their development and for their training”, the league said in a statement in response to FIFA’s ban on Thursday.

Atletico have also confirmed that they will appeal the ban, though both teams are free to continue signing players in the current January window.

Madrid are yet to enter the transfer market, with new coach Zinedine Zidane still assessing his squad after succeeding Rafael Benitez last week.

In 2014 a similar ban was imposed on Catalan giants FC Barcelona, who were punished for infringements in the transfer and registration of Under-18 players.

Meanwhile FIFA’s decision is another problem for Perez after a hard few months which saw the failure of the De Gea deal, the sacking of the popular Carlos Ancelotti, the failure and sacking of Rafael Benitez as coach and the club’s expulsion from the King’s Cup for fielding an ineligible player.

Real said that the claim that they had signed foreign players under the age of 18 without being properly registered was “absolutely untrue”.

Club president Enrique Cerezo also commented, “we will have to read all 110 pages of the report to see where the mistakes are, but we believe there are many”.

The next transfer window is this summer and the following is in January 2017 and both teams have 90 days to fix their contractual obligations to the youth players.

Wenger does not fear a Real Madrid raid on his own club, and has already signed his first player of the window by bringing in £5m Basel midfielder Mohamed Elneny.

“As such, the provisions relating to the protection of minors need to be strictly applied”.

“Opening up the door to exceptions beyond those carefully drafted and included in the Regulations would unavoidably lead to cases of circumvention of the rationale for these provisions”.