FIFA to reward SC Villa, Vipers, KCCA and others for releasing players to Cranes

Eight Premier League clubs will receive cash from FIFA as the world football body rolls out FIFA Club Benefits Programme (CBP), which rewards club globally for their contribution to the World Cup Qualifiers.

Simply put, any club that releases a player for a FIFA World Cup 26 qualifier will now be directly compensated for said release, irrespective of whether the player plays at the final tournament.

In Uganda that means SC Villa, Vipers, KCCA, Kitara, Express, NEC, and BUL will all benefit, having released players for the Cranes on-going World Cup Qualifiers.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino observed, “The enhanced edition of the FIFA Club Benefits Programme for the FIFA World Cup 2026 is going a step further by recognising financially the huge contribution that so many clubs and their players around the world make to the staging of both the qualifiers and the final tournament.

“A record USD 355 million will be distributed to clubs for the release of their players, and this reinforces our solid collaboration with the European Club Association and clubs worldwide as we all look forward to a groundbreaking and globally inclusive edition of the FIFA World Cup next year.”

FIFA Club Benefits Programme is part of the renewed memorandum of understanding signed by FIFA and the European Club Associations and for the first time, the programme will directly reward all clubs releasing players for the FIFA World Cup 26™ qualifiers.

The sums are astronomical (70% more compared to previous edition), but the move is seen as a step towards providing a fairer and more inclusive redistribution of football wealth across global club football.

The fourth edition of the CBP, which was implemented for the FIFA World Cup, saw USD 209 million distributed among 440 clubs from 51 FIFA Member Associations across all six confederations.