The meeting between Football Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina representatives and BH Telecom Premier League club directors took place today at the hotel Pino Nature, Trebevic.

This event was organized to discuss the problems regarding clubs' legal issues (status, labor and tax legislation), and professional players' contracts and mandatory tax that goes with it.

General secretary Jasmin Bakovic welcomed the attendees and said: "The fact is that we face different problems when it comes to this subject. Today we're here to discuss one of the most important topics, with the aim to deliver the conclusions from this meeting to the authorities and together try to find the appropriate solutions for all football associations, especially BH Telecom Premier League clubs."

After FFBIH legal committee president's informative presentation, club representatives shared their experiences and thoughts. The general assessment is that there are many problems and some of them are: lack of regulatory decisions on club (re)organization, labor laws are inadequate for professional sports clubs, tax laws are blind to the specificities of sport, problems with amateur/professional clubs' financing, etc.

Some of the basic ideas and goals from this meeting were: to familiarize the authorities and public with these problems, to initiate an analysis, definition, and solution to these issues within FFBIH, to start a broader activity from the social organizations and government bodies, and to establish a genuine dialogue in order to solve football clubs' organizational problems.

Clubs' attitudes are clear:

FK Zeljeznicar: "We'd like to thank FFBIH for organizing this seminar because this is among the most important topics for sports organizations. We're all faced with difficulties when it comes to the implementation of normative acts and we believe it's necessary to ask for tax incentives for clubs. This is a long process and it will take many meetings and institutions in order to make a breakthrough."

FK Radnik: "We wanted to share with you our experience from a meeting with the RS Ministry of Finance representatives, where we encountered an understanding and a will to help us. They even suggested to set up a working group together with the FBiH Ministry of Finance and FFBIH representatives."

FK Sarajevo: "We're organized somewhat differently, but we went through a lot of these problems related to the players' contracts, and we're ready to share our experiences with others."

NK Siroki Brijeg: "We've been initiating this talk for a long time, and I'm glad that it's finally opened. Player transfers are the source of income for clubs around the world, however our issues are considerable taxes."

Discussions mainly went in the same direction and can be summed up with the following conclusions:

• In order to overcome this situation it's necessary to initiate a social dialogue with the relevant institutions at the appropriate levels and amend the legal solutions related to the football clubs' work;
• An appropriate information on these issues should be compiled within a month, and with that information inform the public and competent public authorities;
• A joint conference between FFBIH , PL club representatives, and representatives from relevant ministries and tax authorities has to be held in the future, in order to start dealing with the organizational problems that football clubs have been facing with;
• It was agreed to form a working group that will be in charge of the implementation of the said activities, and the group will include representatives from FFBIH as well as following clubs: FK Zeljeznicar, NK Siroki Brijeg, FK Sarajevo, HSK Zrinjski and FK Radnik;