The protection of minors is very significant from a social and legal perspective and concerns everyone in society. However, the protection of minors is relatively a new topic since the professional training of coaches in this regard started during the mid 90’s. On the other hand, the increase in cross-border movements due to economic, political, social and environmental reasons has revealed the vulnerability of children who are affected by this fact more than anyone else. The children and their families who have not been able to find sufficient education, care, health services and social opportunities in their own or host countries consider sport, and especially football, as a means of breaking away. As the commercial value of football and competition among the clubs has increased in Europe, scouting and transferring young talents from the countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia with low cost and less effort has become more profitable for the European clubs. There has been a growing concern linked to the transfer of minors that larger football clubs are attracting young overseas talents to their academies and this is undermining the efforts of many smaller clubs to invest in the education and training of such talents. Realising the graveness of the situation, the European Union (EU) took the initiative to raise awareness for more effective protection of minors in sport. The 2000 Nice Declaration on Sport expressed “concern about commercial transactions targeting minors in sport, including those from third countries, inasmuch as they do not comply with existing labour legislation or endanger the health, and welfare of young sportsmen and women.” By the same token, in 2007, the European Commission issued a White Paper on Sport which states that “whilst the movement of minors in sport across frontiers may fall short of the legal definition of trafficking, the exploitation of young players continues to be a problem in the EU.” In this White Paper, the Commission refers to the reports that an international network managed by agents takes very young players to Europe especially from Africa and Latin America and the children who are not selected by the clubs are then abandoned in those foreign countries all alone, subject to further exploitation. The European Parliament also shared similar concerns through the Belet and Mavrommatis Reports. The EU institutions’ approach was supported by the political commitment of the EU Member States, which culminated in the drafting of Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which grants a supporting competence in the field of sport. The wording of Article 165 (2) is as follows: “The Union shall contribute to the promotion of European sporting issues, while taking account of the specific nature of sport, its structures based on voluntary activity and its social and educational function.” In 2010, the European Sports Forum held in Madrid discussed a number of issues related to the use of young people in sport including overtraining and exploitation, missed education opportunities, the use of doping substances, and sexual abuse and harassment. Although the UN Convention on Rights of the Child does not have any provisions directly related to sport, many provisions of this Convention may still be considered as the legal basis of the protection of minors in sport. The Convention’s ultimate objective is to guarantee the sound development and progressive empowerment of children and adolescents, and it provides a wide range of safeguards to ensure their protection from all forms of abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation. These safeguards are directly relevant to minors in sport. Under the Convention, the States are responsible for taking all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child. Having realised the intense movement of minors across borders to play football in foreign counties endangering their health and welfare, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) started to establish basic principles to protect them in 1990. In 2001, FIFA developed a regulatory framework composed of a set of provisions within its Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) which govern the international transfer of minors. This framework went through modifications in 2005, 2009, and 2015 to expand its scope and to improve the protection provided to minor players. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is an integral part of this regulatory regime as a supreme arbitral authority, which clarifies its practical operation through its jurisprudence by examining and interpreting its specific provisions. In this respect, the Midjylland Case, the Elmir Muhic Case, the Vada I and Vada II Cases, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid Cases are main cornerstones in the implementation of the substantive and procedural rules of the RSTP. Article 19 of the FIFA RSTP provides that international transfers of players are only permitted if the player is over the age of 18. Three exceptions to this rule apply. First, if the player’s parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football. Second, the transfer takes place within the territory of the EU or EEA and the player is aged between 16 and 18, subject to the new club fulfilling a number of minimum obligations including the provision of education, training and accommodation. Third, the player lives no further than 50 km from a national border and the club which the player wishes to be registered in the neighbouring association is also within 50 km of that border. The rule takes effect only if there is a maximum distance between the player’s domicile and the club’s headquarters and the minor must continue to live at home. FIFA has accepted two further exceptions with regard to unaccompanied refugee players, and exchange students. The prohibition on the transfer of minors also extends to first registrations of non-national minors. Besides the substantive provisions laid out in Article 19 and 19bis, a key procedural requirement for any international transfer is the issuance of the International Transfer Certificate (ITC) by the player’s former association within whose territory his/her new club is based. The FIFA Players’ Status Committee (PSC) is authorised to inspect and approve every international transfer and every first registration of minors in football. National associations are required to submit an application to the Sub-Committee appointed by the PSC to seek an approval before registering any minor. In addition, FIFA has also developed a Transfer Matching System (TMS), the web-based information processing system for international transfers. The system has been proven very successful so far and the CAS decisions in Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid Cases, with the Chealsea decision on its way, shed further light on the effective implementation of the system despite certain contradictions.