Aberdeen say they have been awarded a fee of “£639,920, with an additional £250k of conditional performance-based payments” following Connor Barron’s summer move to Rangers.
The Dons could also receive “future economic rights by way of a sell-on”, should Barron be sold by the Ibrox club.
The midfielder, 22, joined the Ibrox club as a free agent but the Dons were entitled to compensation after he started his professional career at Pittodrie and the matter went to a tribunal.
Aberdeen said: “The guaranteed fee and the likelihood of where the final compensation will eventually land, by way of the future conditional payments, justifies our decision to reject the full and final offer that was presented to us by Rangers back in May, which led to the tribunal being convened.
“However, this arduous and costly process, and even the final determination, highlights the need for an urgent review into both the domestic and international training compensation systems to ensure clubs continue to be incentivised and protected when it comes to the development of young players.
“We believe that an opportunity has been missed in Connor’s case, and where our domestic system is concerned, to ensure that clubs can be confident that the increasing, and significant, costs that are borne with academy player development are recognised and as such, there is an incentive for clubs to continue such level of investment.”
The club explained they spend roughly £2.2m a year to run their academy and that Brexit has driven “big English clubs, aided and abetted by football agents who in turn are raking in significant six-figure fees to uproot the very best young Scottish talent whilst in their mid-teens for a pittance”.
And they added: “We nurtured Connor for 14 years, during which he played at every age group for the club from pre-academy to first team, played in cup finals, Uefa group stages, played in every age-group squad for Scotland, including being under-21 captain, and has now been called up to the full international team.
“Despite this long-term development and Connor’s numerous accolades, the determination (whilst worth the time and resources to obtain) falls a long way short of what we believe would be an appropriate award that recognises the training and development of Connor, and the costs incurred in that development.
“Indeed, whilst we would have received less compensation if Connor had gone cross-border via the Fifa system, it is our view that the categorisation and figures within the Fifa system, now decades old, nowhere near reflect today’s actual costs incurred by clubs.”