Gibraltar players benefit lower-tier English League clubs

Clubs in the lower tiers of English football with Gibraltar-eligible players on their books will this week receive an additional financial benefit as UEFA distributes payments for players released for international duty.
Clubs associated with Gibraltar players, many of which would normally see little direct benefit from UEFA funding linked to international football, will receive €3,845 per player, per eligible match, under the UEFA Club Benefits Programme.
The payment applies to players listed on a national team match sheet for UEFA Nations League and European Qualifiers fixtures.
While individual contractual agreements between clubs and players may determine whether some of the money is subsequently passed on to the player, the payments themselves are made directly to the clubs.
Among the English clubs set to benefit from Gibraltar players being involved at international level are Salisbury, Chelmsford City, Boston United, Three Bridges, Consett, Burnley, Dorking Wanderers and Chesterfield. Several of these are clubs not traditionally associated with having players involved regularly on the international stage. Recent movement of players between clubs could add further clubs to the list.
Other non-Gibraltar clubs which could benefit from the payments include Estepona, Larne, Portadown, Al Dhaid, OFK Beograd and Arsenal.
The bulk of payments connected to the Gibraltar national team will, however, go to domestic clubs. St Joseph’s, Lincoln Red Imps, Mons Calpe, Magpies, Europa, Lynx and Glacis United are among those whose players have featured in recent squads selected by Scott Wiseman.
Gibraltar-based players are understood in some cases to have contractual agreements with their clubs under which a proportion of money received for international football is passed on to the player as part of their overall earnings for the season.
Such arrangements vary between individual players and clubs. Lincoln Red Imps, for example, are known to have previously operated a policy under which a percentage of these payments was passed on to players.
Gibraltar will, however, receive less overall through the programme than some other nations because they were drawn in a three-team Nations League group, giving them fewer competitive international fixtures.
Although Gibraltar are required to fill the international windows with a set number of matches, friendly internationals do not form part of the UEFA Club Benefits Programme payments. This means clubs supplying Gibraltar players can receive substantially less than those supplying national teams playing in larger qualifying groups.
UEFA announced that approximately €31.5 million will be distributed this week to 611 clubs across all its member associations for releasing players during the 2024/25 UEFA Nations League.
The payments represent the first distribution under the current UEFA Club Benefits Programme cycle and form part of €104 million allocated to clubs releasing players for the 2024/25 and 2026/27 Nations League competitions and the qualifying competition for UEFA EURO 2028.
Under the programme, clubs receive €3,845 for each eligible player appearance on a national team match sheet for Nations League and European Qualifiers fixtures. For the EURO 2028 final tournament, compensation will instead be calculated on a per-player, per-day basis.
The programme extends across the different levels of European football, with amateur clubs also among the 611 beneficiaries. RB Leipzig will receive the largest individual payment in this distribution, approximately €353,000, after releasing 16 players.
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin said the programme recognised the contribution clubs make to national team football through developing players and releasing them for international duty.
The current club benefits cycle linked to UEFA EURO 2028 provides for a total distribution of €244 million, including €4 million remaining from the EURO 2024 programme.
Of this, €104 million is allocated to clubs releasing players for the two Nations League editions and the EURO 2028 qualifying competition, while a further €140 million has been reserved for clubs releasing players for the final tournament.
Further payments will be distributed as the relevant competitions are completed.