Whats Wrong With The Beautiful Game Part 2: The Bosman Ruling

As much as the referees and the rule makers have impacted the game on the field the European court has affected the game as much off the field.

The biggest a probably best-known case was the Jean-Marc Bosman case.

Jean-Marc was a footballer playing for RFC Liege in Belgium and had come to the end of his contract with the club and he wanted to be transferred to French side Dunkerque.

Up until the Bosman case a player could only change clubs if both clubs reached an agreement. This agreement usually came in the form of a transfer fee even if a player was out of contact with the selling club.

As RFC Liege were unwilling to allow the player to leave for nothing and Dunkerque were unwilling to pay the transfer fee that was being asked for the player. So it ended up with Jean-Marc taking his club RFC Liege and Uefa to the European Courts.

Bosman claimed as an EU Citizen he was entitled to the “freedom of movement” within the EU if he wanted to find work, but the transfer system was preventing him from using his right to the freedom of movement and that the transfer system should be changed to allow out of contract players to move between clubs without any fee being attached.

Jean-Marc Bosman won his landmark case and the foundations for the Bosman were set. The court case laid down new ground rules regarding out of contract players, which stated that any player over the age of 23 could move between clubs without a fee, but any players under this age would still require a development fee.

The court case also decided to take a look at another of Uefa's rules regarding the limiting the number of foreign players in a team. They found these rules also broke the EU's employment laws and that a quota for the number of foreign players from EU nations was illegal. Up until the case a club could only have a maximum 3 foreign players and two naturalised players.     

Both of these ruling had a massive effect on the football economy and especially the smaller clubs.

Up until this point the smaller clubs income was made by developing and selling players to other teams but with players now with players able to sit out there contracts and leave for nothing.  Before the Bosman ruling the Football Association had already instigated a tribunal process between clubs that were involved in the transfer of out of contract players in order to allow the players to move between clubs and receive a reasonable fee.

One of the most casing examples of a player sitting out his contract was that of former Tottenham Hotspurs Skipper Sol Campbell towards the end of his contract wanted to see what option were laid before him before signing a new deal with Spurs.

At the time he was one of the best defenders in the world but was playing for a club, which had only won a league cup, and he wanted to test himself on a higher level and win titles

With all the speculation and with the likes of Milan and Inter staking him a move was on the cards but instead of joining one of Italy’s elite he chose one of the Premierships elite Arsenal, Tottenham’s arch rivals.

Because there was no Transfer fee it meant that Arsenal could afford to put that transfer money into his wage packet. He did go on to have quite a few successful years with the Gunners but also has become a hate figure for the Tottenham faithful.

The arrival of the Bosman has also meant a larger number of cheaper foreign players within club sides and its now a common site within the larger European leagues to see 9,10 or even eleven foreign players lining up for a club side.

This has meant it has become much harder for homegrown talent to break into sides. This has concerned Uefa and Fifa enough to look into quotas for homegrown talent in the starting line ups.

One of the biggest impacts the Bosman ruling has made has been to the players themselves. Players were traditionally protect by there contracts but now with a flow of out of contact players every summer, players who are released at the end of the tenure may find themselves spending the pre-season period travelling up and down the country fighting for a contract and if there unsuccessful could find themselves out of work.

If the player is successful the impact of the Bosman has meant that clubs tend to offer shorter contracts of 1 to 2 years and at the end of the term he could have to fight for another deal at another club.

This ruling was meant to help players but has left a lot of players trying to find a future in the game itself.

The Bosman has seemed to work for the top end players as it means l

lucrative signing on fees and high salaries but for those not so lucky it could mean a long hard slog of a career with falling salaries and less security within the game.