Clubs are set to be limited in the number of January transfers they can make, while criminal checks and other measures aimed at improving transparency will be introduced as part of Fifa’s radical shake-up of the transfer market.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino is determined to crack down on financial mismanagement within the game and has set up a taskforce, led by CONCACAF chief Victor Montagliani, to explore ways the process of buying and selling players can be formalised.

The plans are yet to be finalised but several initial proposals were unveiled at a meeting of the Association of Football Agents (AFA) held in Barnet on Wednesday, attended by more than 150 intermediaries and representatives from Fifa, Uefa, the FA and the Professional Footballers’ Association.

Standard Sport can reveal the issues being discussed include:

Restricting clubs to a maximum of four transactions per January window.

Introducing a European-wide, early August transfer deadline, but with a caveat that clubs can replace two seriously injured players until the end of the month.

Introducing criminal checks for all people involved with financial transactions (currently only agents are subjected to such a requirement).

All transfers to go through Fifa’s Transfer Matching System (TMS), with details of all parties and their bank accounts listed to reduce the prospect of money laundering.

Training compensation payments — a fee paid to a player’s training club when they sign their first professional contract with another club — will be scrapped, with solidarity payments, sums payable to clubs involved in a player’s training and education upon the transfer of a player aged under 23, increased and widened instead.

An agent cap is unlikely and the practice of duality — where an agent represents player and a club in the same deal, effectively being paid twice — could continue in some form, but a code of conduct will be introduced.

It is thought that in excess of 80 per cent of financial deals in football are conducted by agents, and Infantino believes formalising their operations through a series of changes will help tackle concerns that hundreds of millions disappear out of the game in illegal transactions each year.

The three-hour meeting was said to be hugely productive, with many agents welcoming the prospect of tighter controls after Fifa opted to deregulate the industry in 2015.

It is the first time there has been a major dialogue between the game’s powerbrokers and agents. Should plans progress as expected, the new laws could be implemented by January 2019. In attendance were several influential figures including the highly rated head of professional football at Fifa, James Johnson, head of EU & Stakeholders Affairs, Julien Zylberstein, and leading sports lawyer Nick De Marco, QC.

The Premier League and Football League are both believed to be supportive of the plans and only failed to have prominent figures at the meeting due to a clash with stakeholder events of their own.

This transfer window is the first in which Premier League clubs are required to complete their business before the season starts. The deadline for buying players is August 9 but clubs can still sell to overseas leagues until that country’s cut-off.

Read more When does the Premier League transfer window open? Deals and key dates

Under the new proposals, that would end, with a uniform deadline introduced, albeit with an allowance of two further transfers until the end of August to replace injured players. The exact definition of what length of injury would qualify is yet to be clarified.

To help reduce mid-season disruption, discussions are ongoing about capping the number of transfers a club can make in January.

Talks are centring on a limit of four, although that could change as the process continues. To that end, no clear revision of loan deals and where they would fit into any window changes has yet been put forward.

There is also a desire to ensure criminal checks are introduced for anyone handling financial transactions at a football club and who could potentially be paid as part of a deal, including chief executives and scouts.

Fifa’s TMS system is only currently used for international transfers and is currently merely a facilitator for a deal, rather than a regulator.

It is proposed that all deals — domestic and international — will go through TMS, with the details of all parties listed and, significantly, their bank accounts named for transparency.

This is chiefly aimed at tackling accusations of money laundering and establishes a clear paper trail which is easier for the authorities to follow.

It is believed that the system of training compensation payments has been abused for years. In an effort to help smaller clubs be financially rewarded for developing young players, solidarity payments will be increased.

Fifa are keen to implement an agent cap but that prospect is receding in the face of fierce opposition from some of the world’s leading agents, who have indicated they would be willing to contest the measure in the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

The organisation are keen to avoid agents earning huge lump sums which, they believe, tarnish the game’s image, such as Mino Raiola’s £41million fee as part of Manchester United’s purchase of Paul Pogba in 2016.

Prior to this summer’s window, English clubs across the top five divisions spent £257m on agent fees.

In response, the Fifa taskforce is looking to stop agents owning players, a practice that is commonplace in Africa and South America among other regions.

Talks are continuing over the issue of duality and, despite criticism from the Premier League and other bodies, the practice may continue in some form.

Fifa will, however, insist that the agent must be paid by the player he is acting on behalf of. Currently, it is commonplace for the club to make such a payment.

There is also a call for a degree of self-regulation among agents; an entrance exam for intermediaries will not be introduced but there will be a code of conduct implemented and a grievance procedure put in place.

The finer details are still being discussed and the taskforce is due to meet again on Monday to discuss feedback from the AFA, the European Football Association and various other stakeholders.