FIFA has temporarily suspended the transfer bans imposed two weeks ago on Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid while world football's governing body investigates the club appeals regarding the signing of youth players.
The FIFA appeals committee informed the clubs of the news on Friday.
Atletico Madrid communicated the news to supporters via Twitter, while Real Madrid later released a one-line statement on their website.
FIFA's Appeal Committee grants us the probationary suspension of the sanction pending the outcome of the appeal
- Atleti English (@atletienglish) January 29, 2016
Real Madrid's statement read: "Real Madrid would like to communicate that the FIFA appeals committee has decided to temporarily suspend the sanctions imposed on the club."
The Spanish clubs were notified earlier this month by FIFA that they had been banned from registering new players for the next two transfer windows after FIFA ruled that both clubs violated regulations against signing young international players.
Both clubs can now sign players while FIFA makes a determination on the appeal. The clubs had not been banned from signing players during this current transfer window, but the original sanction applied for the 2016 summer transfer window and the 2017 winter window.
Should FIFA not make a decision on the appeal by the beginning of this summer, both clubs would be eligible to sign players during the 2016 summer window. But should FIFA ultimately find that both clubs did violate the regulations against signing young international players, both could be dealt transfer bans for the duration of two windows.
Press Association Sport reported that the appeals will be heard before the summer.
Atletico Madrid had presented two appeals before FIFA, the club said. The first was seeking to have the decision made null and the second was a preliminary suspension of the sanctions until the time that the appeals committee had given a final verdict on the subject of youth transfer. This second appeal was the one that was granted.
"The FIFA Appeal Committee has granted the probationary suspension of the sanction imposed by the Disciplinary Committee of said body that prevented our club from signing national or foreign football players during the next two full periods of recruitment," Atletico said in a statement. "The probationary suspension of said sanction shall be applied pending the outcome of the appeal filed by our club with the Appeal Committee of the maximum global governing body of football."
Real Madrid are yet to publicly announce any appeal.
In April 2014, FIFA had banned Barcelona from signing any players for two consecutive transfer windows after the club were found guilty of breaching regulations in place to avoid the exploitation and trafficking of young players.
FIFA then agreed to suspend the measure pending an appeal, which allowed the Catalan club to sign players during the 2014 summer transfer window, spending more than €150 million on Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Thomas Vermaelen, Alen Halilovic and Jeremy Mathieu.
On Aug. 20, 2014, however, world football's governing body threw out the appeal and the Catalan club were unable to sign any players in 2015.