Bosman ruling
Encyclopedia
Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman (1995) C-415/93 (known as the "Bosman ruling") is a 1995 European Court of Justice
European Court of Justice
The Court can sit in plenary session, as a Grand Chamber of 13 judges, or in chambers of three or five judges. Plenary sitting are now very rare, and the court mostly sits in chambers of three or five judges...

 decision concerning freedom of movement for workers
Freedom of movement for workers
The freedom of movement for workers is a policy chapter of the acquis communautaire of the European Union. It is part of the free movement of persons and one of the four economic freedoms: free movement of goods, services, labour and capital...

, freedom of association
Freedom of association
Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue and defend common interests....

, and direct effect
Direct effect
Direct effect is the principle of European Union law according to which provisions of Union law may, if appropriately framed, confer rights and impose obligations on individuals which the courts of European Union member states are bound to recognise and enforce...

 of article 39 (formerly 48) of the EC Treaty. The case was an important decision on the free movement of labour and had a profound effect on the transfers of football players within the EU. The case banned restrictions of foreign EU members within the national leagues and allowed professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...

 football players in the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 (EU) to move freely to another club at the end of their term of contract with their present team.

The ruling was made in a consolidation of three separate legal cases, all involving Belgian player Jean-Marc Bosman
Jean-Marc Bosman
Jean-Marc Bosman is a former Belgian footballer, whose judicial challenge of the football transfer rules led to the Bosman ruling...

:
  • Belgian Football Association
    Belgian Football Association
    The Royal Belgian Football Association is the governing body of football in Belgium...

     v Jean-Marc Bosman
  • R.F.C. de Liège
    R.F.C. de Liège
    Royal Football Club de Liège is a Belgian football club from the city of Liège. It currently plays in the Belgian Third Division. Its matricule is 4, meaning that it was the fourth club to register with the country's national federation, and the club was the first Belgian champion in history...

     v Jean-Marc Bosman and others
  • UEFA
    UEFA
    The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....

     v Jean-Marc Bosman

Facts

Bosman was a player in the Belgian First Division in Belgium whose contract had expired in 1990. He wanted to change teams and move to Dunkerque
USL Dunkerque
USL Dunkerque is a French football club based in the commune of Dunkirk.They currently play in the Championnat de France Amateurs Group A. The club's nickname is The Doves. Their kit colours are white and blue. They play their home matches at the Stade Tribut in Dunkirk.-History:The club was...

, a French team. However, Dunkerque did not offer his Belgian club RFC Liège
R.F.C. de Liège
Royal Football Club de Liège is a Belgian football club from the city of Liège. It currently plays in the Belgian Third Division. Its matricule is 4, meaning that it was the fourth club to register with the country's national federation, and the club was the first Belgian champion in history...

 enough of a transfer fee, so Liège refused to let him go.

In the meantime, Bosman's wages were reduced as he was no longer a first-team player. He took his case to the European Court of Justice
European Court of Justice
The Court can sit in plenary session, as a Grand Chamber of 13 judges, or in chambers of three or five judges. Plenary sitting are now very rare, and the court mostly sits in chambers of three or five judges...

 in Luxembourg
Luxembourg
Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

 and sued for restraint of trade
Restraint of trade
Restraint of trade is a common law doctrine relating to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business. In an old leading case of Mitchell v Reynolds Lord Smith LC said,...

 citing FIFA
FIFA
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association , commonly known by the acronym FIFA , is the international governing body of :association football, futsal and beach football. Its headquarters are located in Zurich, Switzerland, and its president is Sepp Blatter, who is in his fourth...

's rules regarding football, specifically Article 17.

Judgment

On 15 December 1995 the court ruled that the system, as it was constituted, placed a restriction on the free movement of workers and was prohibited by Article 39(1) of the EC Treaty
Treaty of Rome
The Treaty of Rome, officially the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, was an international agreement that led to the founding of the European Economic Community on 1 January 1958. It was signed on 25 March 1957 by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany...

 (now Article 45 (1) of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union). Bosman and all other EU football players were given the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within one EU Association to a club within another EU Association.

Significance

Prior to the Bosman ruling, professional clubs in parts of Europe (but not, for example, in Spain and France) were able to prevent players from joining another club even if their contracts had expired. In the United Kingdom, Transfer Tribunals had been in place since 1981 to resolve disputes over fees between clubs when transferring players at the end of their contracts. In addition to this, players can sign a pre-contract with another club for a free transfer if the players' contract with their existing club has six months or less remaining. The Bosman ruling can be compared to the Seitz decision
Seitz decision
The Seitz decision was a ruling by arbitrator Peter Seitz on December 23, 1975 which declared that Major League Baseball players became free agents upon playing one year for their team without a contract, effectively nullifying baseball's reserve clause...

 in Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

, which led to the elimination of the reserve clause
Reserve clause
The reserve clause is a term formerly employed in North American professional sports contracts. The reserve clause, contained in all standard player contracts, stated that, upon the contract's expiration the rights to the player were to be retained by the team to which he had been signed...

 and the advent of free agency
Free agent
In professional sports, a free agent is a player whose contract with a team has expired and who is thus eligible to sign with another club or franchise....

 in North American baseball.

The Bosman ruling also prohibited domestic football leagues in EU member states, and also UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....

, from imposing quotas on foreign players to the extent that they discriminated against nationals of EU states. At that time, many leagues placed quotas restricting the number of non-nationals allowed on member teams. Also, UEFA had a rule that prohibited teams in its competitions, namely the Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...

, Cup Winners' Cup
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a football club competition contested annually by the most recent winners of all European domestic cup competitions. The cup is one of the many inter-European club competitions that have been organised by UEFA. The first competition was held in the 1960–61 season—but...

 and UEFA Cup
UEFA Cup
The UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...

, from naming more than three "foreign" players in their matchday squads. After the ruling, quotas could still be imposed, but could only be used to restrict the number of non-EU players on each team.

On 21 April 2005, UEFA 52 member federations unanimously approved a rule designed to increase the number of locally trained players. The measure is an attempt to reverse some of the effects of the Bosman ruling.

Players

Since the ruling came into effect in all of the EU in 1995, several notable players in European football have benefited from the ruling. In 1996, Edgar Davids
Edgar Davids
Edgar Steven Davids is a retired Dutch footballer and current member of the supervisory board of Ajax. After beginning his career with the Amsterdam club, he subsequently played in Italy for Milan and Juventus before a loan spell with Barcelona. He went on to play for Internazionale and Tottenham...

 became Europe's first elite club Bosman transferred player, when he moved from Ajax Amsterdam
Ajax Amsterdam
Amsterdamsche Football Club Ajax , also referred to as AFC Ajax, Ajax Amsterdam or simply Ajax , is a professional football club from Amsterdam, Netherlands...

 to AC Milan. In 1999, Steve McManaman
Steve McManaman
Steven McManaman is a retired English footballer who played as a midfielder, winger and playmaker. Having spent his playing career at two of European football's most successful clubs of the 20th century, Liverpool and Real Madrid, as well as a spell at Manchester City, McManaman is the most...

 became the most lucrative transfer at the time in British football, as "Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

’s first high-profile Bosman departure", when he moved from Liverpool
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...

 to Real Madrid and the deal resulted in McManaman once becoming the highest paid British player in history, for the years 1999 through 2001. Since then, notable players have become brand names and seized the ruling to command and negotiate deals according to their market value when their contracts expired.

Clubs

The ruling is notable because clubs are deemed as unable to gain anything with players becoming commodities, even though clubs argued they trained the players and groomed them from youth levels. Many believe the Bosman ruling coincided directly with the heralding a new era of financial gains in football a decade later, in the 2000s, and in 2005, UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....

 declared that they were seeking to repair these aspects of the ruling, because it was believed to be the cause of the increasing rich-poor gap between elite and smaller clubs.

Effect on other sports

The Bosman ruling was considered and distinguished in Lehtonen (2000), a similar case which involved a deadline imposed by FIBA
International Basketball Federation
The International Basketball Federation, more commonly known as FIBA , from its French name Fédération Internationale de Basketball, is an association of national organizations which governs international competition in basketball...

 after which basketball teams could not include players who had played for another team in the same season, where it was found that such a restriction was lawful.

See also

  • Retain and transfer system
    Retain and transfer system
    The retain and transfer system was a restriction that existed in England from 1893 until 1963 on the freedom of professional association football players to transfer from one Football League club to another...

  • Eastham v. Newcastle United, a similar 1963 court case in England
  • Seitz decision
    Seitz decision
    The Seitz decision was a ruling by arbitrator Peter Seitz on December 23, 1975 which declared that Major League Baseball players became free agents upon playing one year for their team without a contract, effectively nullifying baseball's reserve clause...

    , a similar 1975 arbitration
    Arbitration
    Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, where the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons , by whose decision they agree to be bound...

     case in the United States
  • Kolpak ruling, which extended Bosman to countries with an associate trading relationship with the EU, most notably the ACP countries
    ACP countries
    The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States is a group of countries , created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. The group's main objectives are sustainable development and poverty reduction within its member states, as well as their greater integration into the world's economy...

  • Webster ruling
    Webster ruling
    The Webster ruling is a test case in association football law involving Andy Webster, a defender formerly with Heart of Midlothian football club in Edinburgh, Scotland...

    , a post-Bosman ruling which formalised the 'buy-out' rules for disputed transfers of players still within their contract term
  • 6+5 rule
    6+5 rule
    The 6+5 rule was a proposition for an association football rule adopted by FIFA during a meeting in May 2008- Definition :At the beginning of each match, each club must field at least six players eligible to play for the national team of the country of the club...

  • De Havilland Law
    De Havilland Law
    The De Havilland Law is the informal name of California Labor Code Section 2855, a California law which prevents a court from enforcing specific performance of an exclusive personal services contract beyond the term of seven calendar years from the commencement of service.The section was first...

    - free agency within the entertainment industry

External links

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