Different from all other businesses

Date: 15/06/06

They may have lavish lifestyles and vast salaries but it is only relatively recently that footballers have won most of their important labour rights.

Since professional football began more than a century ago there has been conflict between clubs and players over control of their careers but the pendulum has begun to swing in favour of players, says Jonathan Magee, senior lecturer at the International Football Institute in England. "I think with each challenge the football authorities are getting weaker," he says.

The big challenge came in 1995 with the Bosman ruling from the European Court of Justice which allowed players to move freely between clubs at the end of his contract. The ruling did away with transfer fees which a club releasing a player at the end of his contract would receive from the club to which the player was going. The ruling also allowed the free movement of players between EU countries.

The ruling has been blamed for giving top players the enormous salaries they now command, because in the absence of transfer fees they can dictate their own wages. But some see this as an unfair charge. "There is no doubt the Bosman ruling made a huge change but this change has been overestimated. The salaries have increased, not because of the Bosman ruling, but because of changes in television rights that came about in the 1990s," says one EU official.

A second challenge which could also have implications for players is currently before the European Court of Justice. The sports governing body FIFA is facing a legal challenge from Belgian club Charleroi, backed by the G14 group of leading European clubs, asking for the EU to treat FIFA as abusing its dominant position by acting as regulator of the clubs as well as being a business in its own right. Charleroi and the G14 argue that there should be compensation for players who get injured during international matches when footballers must be released to play for their country.

The ruling may have implications for the current struggle between clubs and national football associations over whether players should play on the international scene. This struggle was starkly illustrated in the run-up to the World Cup when Manchester United's manager Alex Ferguson and the England coach Sven-G�ran Eriksson were involved in a war of words over whether injured player Wayne Rooney should play. Fearing that another injury to an already weakened foot could put Rooney out of action for months, Ferguson said: "We musn't rush Wayne back too soon. The boy would not do himself justice in the finals."

But Jonathan Hill, head of UEFA's EU office says this conflict should never have been allowed to exist. "If you listen to the clubs' argument they have lost the perspective...the reason why everyone is excited about the World Cup is because the best players are there." Hill also argues that international tournaments are good for clubs because they give a showcase to their players - increasing their value when transfers come around.

Another area with implications for labour rights is the regulation of players' agents. Agents can represent both a player and the club he is negotiating with, thereby creating a conflict of interest. FIFA and UEFA want to see control of the fees that agents receive when a player transfers to a different club. Sometimes this fee can be enormous and needs to be regulated, says Hill.

But Hill believes some restrictions on footballers should remain, such as those agreed between UEFA and the European Commission in 2001 by which players were prevented from leaving a club during the football season and 'transfer windows' were created. According to UEFA, because football is about fans as well as about players, disruption to the game should be avoided, even if it infringes on footballers' labour mobility. "Sport is different, it doesn't behave normally," he says.

Article takes a look at recent improvements in the field of footballers' labour rights.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'The EU and Football'.

European Commission: Sport http://ec.europa.eu/comm/sport/index_en.html

UEFA: Homepage http://www.uefa.com/

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