Bosman Law Special | Influencer Bosman

To understand his problem, you have to know what the transfers were like before 1995 and the right of retention that the clubs had for which Messi would pull his hair today. This meant that the players were not free at the end of their contract, but the home club could claim a price for their transfer. Bosman, in 1990, wanted to leave the RFC Liège for Dunkirk. However, the Belgians demanded money that the French could not pay and Bosman was left without equipment.

Then, the footballer started a legal dispute that lasted five years at the Liège Court of Appeal. His argument lay in Article 48 of the 1957 Treaties of Rome. The first steps of the European Union. There the European Economic Community (EEC) was created and, through the aforementioned article, the free movement of workers within the Community was established:

With this legal basis, Bosman claimed his right not to be discriminated against for his profession and asked to withdraw that right of retention in force to date. In consecuense, It was also requested that the players from the countries that signed the EEC Treaty did not have the label of what in football is known as 'extra-community'. The judgment delivered in a public hearing in Luxembourg on December 15, 1995 read as follows:

His victory set an example for others like Kolpak in 2003 or Simutenkov in 2005. The former, a Slovak handball goalkeeper, fought for the same as Bosman but for countries that were not in the European Union but had signed the Association Agreement with the European Union (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus and Turkey). The second, former Tenerife footballer, resorted to the 1997 Collaboration and Cooperation Agreement to allow players from Russia (and consequently Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan) to be considered EU.

A great achievement for the footballer (and not only that of the European Union), who saw his options multiplied, for the representative and for the rich club. Not so much for the clubs of the small federations and, consequently, the plurality of football.

Before the Bosman Act, teams had to do what they could. If their quarry (or those of their country) did not generate enough talent to compete, they could not go to the market and fill the shopping basket of foreign players. And if they did, it would be of little use to them because they could only line up three in an official match. One of the most striking cases was that of Milan in the 1992-93 season. That year Capello had Rijkaard, Van Basten, Gullit, Savicevic, Boban and Papin on his staff. He had to choose for each game which three stars were left without calling.

As soon as the players from member countries of the European Union were not considered as non-EU, a huge range of possibilities opened up for clubs. Not only did it mean that they could buy the best European players without limitations, but the nationalities that opposed the three places of foreigners on each team were much smaller. This detail had a direct impact on the South Americans, who began to leave Brazil and Argentina in search of the best contracts.

Obviously, not only has the number of championship leagues been reduced, but also the number of teams. Whereas before Bosman there were twenty different champions, after there have only been eleven. Any child would be amazed if we told him that there was a time when Nottingham Forest (1979 and 1980), Aston Villa (1982), Steaua Bucharest (1986) or Red Star (1991) could be the best teams in Europe.

Like every story, it depends on the point of view from which you look at it. And if we put on the boots of the youth squad or the average footballer (the great star would play in any club before and after Bosman), we see that It is increasingly difficult to find a place in the roster of the best national teams because more and more foreigners arrive. On the other hand, you could also do like them and go out to teams in other countries (some with big contracts, on the other hand). In short, and over the years it has been demonstrated, they began to pay a lot for good players who did not have to be better or worse than those already present. The phrase “but since he's not Brazilian …” is a topic that has been heard regularly to value the Spanish player and that, although it is still a cliché, is sometimes very true. The footballer became more than ever a commodity in the hands of superagents, investment funds and intermediaries, all of them with very high commissions in a transfer market with increasingly ridiculous figures.

Once the establishment In football, the latter will try, as has happened historically in any area of ​​life, to be bigger and bigger and make others smaller and smaller. Definitely, widen the differences to ensure the maximum possible position. Five years after the Bosman Act, the G-14 was created, which years later would be called the ECA.

Since these last years of the twentieth century, European football has only taken steps towards the European Super League that has been around the newspapers recently and is seen as the final consequence of Bosman. Even in 1998 it was possible to read for the first time that of a Super League, proposed by the Media Partners group to UEFA, which had no further travel. But the seed was already set and This ECA has pressured Johansson, Platini and, finally, Ceferin to shape a Champions League at will, with the constant threat of the creation of a Super League that leaves UEFA without the participation of the best clubs in the world. The maximum continental competition has changed its format a lot, but it used to be called the Champions League because it brought together the winners of all the European leagues. From that idea it has come to the current one, in which even the fourth major league has a guaranteed place in the group stage while the champion of leagues such as the Greek, Austrian, Czech or Swiss only have a place in the qualifying phase. In this way, the best clubs in Europe protect themselves from a bad season by ensuring each year they play (and get paid for) the Champions League.