Windhoek — The world football's governing body, FIFA, is set to tighten player transfer regulations after discovering many loopholes with the current player registration system.

According to FIFA, years of poor oversight has led to rogue agents owning their clients and controlling their destinies, illegal payments between clubs and companies, and money laundering through transfers of fictitious footballers.

FIFA plans to implement and make its new on-line transfer register a requirement for most leagues later this year fundamentally altering how players can move to new clubs in different nations.

In a statement, FIFA said that the on-line system is remarkably easy, with clubs signed up to a required web-based network to match the details of any international player transactions and upload proof of payment, identification of agents involved and other documents to confirm a player's new employer.

The world football governing body believes that as a result of this new system, auditing will be significantly easier because FIFA staff and national football officials can inspect players transfer deals from anywhere in the world with a simple login password.

The head of the FIFA anti-corruption programme, Mark Goddard, highlighted the advantages of the new system which he said has already registered 4,000 transfers since 2008.

Goddard said teams found breaking the rules will be punished and transactions involving fictitious players, a common money-laundering technique, will be difficult to get away with as players' identities would first need to be established.

"Minors will be better protected from moving internationally without their parents' approval," he said.

FIFA revealed that the player's transfer market was worth $1 billion each year and involves thousands of professional players moving across borders to find new employers.

Head of the competition department at the Namibia Football Association (NFA), Titus Kunamuene, said that training for the on-line player registration process was conducted in April 2009 by FIFA in Tunisia for all football associations, including Namibia. Kunamuene said Tunisia has successfully used the new player registration technology in their country.

He also said by the end of April 2010, Namibia will have in place the software and equipment for the local on-line registration system and NFA will be responsible for the registration of players in Namibia. "Come next season 2010 to 2011, players of all ages will be registered using the local on-line player registration system.

"There will be training at the Namibia Premier League (NPL) before the end of the month for staff of NPL and all the football club management officials so that they can know how to use the new system," he said. The chief executive officer of NPL, Matthew Haikali, informed the Economist Sport that NPL is working hard to ensure that Namibia is not left behind in the new player registration system.

"The Namibia Premier League office has donated computers to clubs for the new system but management of the clubs will have to ensure that their computers are connected to the internet so that the player online registration software can install on their computers," Haikali said.