Bosman revisited

In ’95 the European Court of Justice ruled that Standard Liege, the Belgium FA and UEFA had broken all sorts of EU employment rules when they refused to allow jouneyman player Jean-Marc Bosman to move to French club Dunkerque after his contract has expired.

However Liege did not like the transfer fee Dunkerque offered and said no to the move. At this time (1990) players out of contract that took a transferred to another federation the clubs involved had to agree a fee.

Bosman was forced to rejoin Liege, however he was no longer a first team player and took a significant salary cut. Bozman filed his case, and the rest is history.

The Bosman ruling created a single marker place for European footballers. It meant that any player that was a citizen of a European Union country could move to any other club in the EU with no compensation owed to the club that lost the player.

In some countries (notably England, Scotland Germany, Portugal and Holland) transfers of out of contract players was restricted. In the UK there was an independent transfer tribunal that would decide how much compensation a club should receive for loosing out of contract player.

The doomsayers said that this was the end of he smaller clubs that rely on transfer fees generated by their selling promising players to the bigger clubs to stay in business.

A second effect was ending quotas set by leagues for a certain number of home players to start games. In European competition for example only three foreign players were allowed to play. After Bosman the rule was changed to three non-EU players and the big clubs took full advantage of this.

In the 2003-2004 season Chelsea fielded a team with not a single British born player in it.

The economics of the game has shifted, a few clubs have gone under and many more have altered their structure to live with in their means, but the wholesale carnage never happened.

Today the FIFA and UEFA are trying to get a quota of a sort set up, requiring six players eligible to play for the national side of the home country. They want this (known as 6+5) to apply to all clubs worldwide, not just within UEFA.

Fairness, reducing cost, developing youth players and national identity are all given as reasons this needs to happen. The EU has said it’s illegal and violates the Bosman ruling, other NGOs have said maybe it can be implemented.

Chelsea and Real Madrid have both made it clear they are willing to take it to the European Courts if needed to keep any type of quota system from happening.