Bosman Law Special | Influencer Bosman

Next to all the claims for labor rights that have been in history, this one is of minimal importance. However, within the soccer bubble, possibly The Bosman Law has been the biggest turning point that this sport has experienced since its professionalization. This was a historical event and not Cristiano's records or Messi's Ballons d'Or.

Bosman fought for the free movement of footballers within the European Union and won, facilitating that, in the future, the football business is exploited to the maximum with salaries, signings and, ultimately, higher figures. But curiously, he got the worst of it and ended up broke. In 2015 he explained in an interview to the magazine Panenka that he was broke, having stopped receiving any unemployment benefits and feeling an absolute rejection on the part of a sector that it promoted so much. Bosman was the only one who did not take advantage of the Bosman Act. This is what happened and these are the consequences that affected his day, that affect now and that will continue to affect in the future.

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.

Thus, the big clubs in Europe could loot the small ones without compassion. Beyond the fact that there was no longer a lien, the economic power and status of the shields knocking on the door was enough to convince the players of the smaller clubs. The most paradigmatic case is that of Ajax at the end of the century. Months before the resolution of the case they had won the European Cup with an eleven that in 1999 had already been divided between Inter, Juventus, Milan, or Barcelona, ​​among others. This is a fact that has been repeating itself for the last twenty-five years. And that's if it's lucky that a modest club comes out with a great generation capable of standing up to anyone, because it is becoming more and more difficult for that to happen. With the lien, the clubs earned money to continue investing in the quarry and to be able to offer a good contract that would retain them for a few years, until they reached football maturity. Now we see how Barça signs Dest having played 38 games with Ajax or Madrid Varane with 24 games at Lens and nobody is surprised. They are the bullies who take money from the sandwich from the weakest.

As a consequence, the elite of European football has changed and can be easily demonstrated by looking at the Champions League champions before and after Bosman. Until 1995 39 editions were disputed and ten different nationalities were seen lifting the title. Since then, in the last 25 there have only been five victorious countries and Porto should be given a special medal for being able to sneak into the four major leagues.

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.

The roadmap, planned from the beginning or not, has been perfect. The big ones steal the interest of the little ones by buying from their best players and thus they don't have to compete against these little ones. Who would have been interested or, rather, who would have won the 1991 Red Star if years ago PSG, Juventus and Chelsea, to name a few, had signed Mihajlovic, Savicevic and Prosinecki? How far Ajax 2019 would have come in subsequent seasons if De Jong and De Ligt had continued is a mystery that the established system in European football has been responsible for burying. With the exception of 2019, there hasn't been a final in the last eleven years without Barcelona, ​​Real Madrid or Bayern. Obviously, increasingly difficult for small federations, which have ceased to exist in the final phase. And it's not an exaggeration: in this last 2019/20, and for the first time in history, all the members of the round of 16 belonged to the five major leagues. And this season only Porto has crept in. If we compare it with the old European Cup we find that in the finals there were teams from up to thirteen different leagues (Scotland, Romania, Sweden, Belgium, Greece or Serbia) while in the current Champions League there have only been seven finalists. Perhaps the most bloody data is that in these last twenty-five years only two teams (Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea) have known what it is to be champions for the first time in their history.

As a consequence of what was described in the previous paragraphs about the South Americans, to whom the doors of Europe were opened since 1995, the Argentine and Brazilian clubs have mainly lost power. What has happened with the Champions League and the Super League is extrapolated from Europe to the whole world with the Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. The Intercontinental Cup has also lost weight since the Bosman Act. Before, the score was 20-14 in favor of the South Americans. Since then, and considering the Intercontinental Cup and the Club World Cup, Europe has swept 19-6. You haven't seen a team from outside Europe win the Club World Cup since 2012. And FIFA has already taken this difference to the next level, creating the FIFA Club World Cup that was scheduled for 2021 but that has been postponed due to the pandemic. In this competition there will be eight European clubs (the last four winners of the Champions and the last four winners of the Europa League) that it will be difficult for any club from another confederation to invite to the semifinals.

At a more local level, within the Premier League, we saw how two months ago the Project Big Picture was proposed, the umpteenth attempt at abuse of power by the big clubs with the smaller ones, drawing a scenario in which he Big six (Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham) have almost absolute decision-making power with respect to all other clubs. It seems that plurality in football is increasingly complicated and Bosman, with which no one doubts that it was his best intention, unwittingly believe the funnel that leads us to always see them win.