Legal issue: The consistency of rules, which regulate the transfers of football players between clubs, with Community law.

Background of the case: Jean-Marc Bosman, a player if football club ‘Liege’ in Belgium, wanted to move upon the expiry of his contract to France and play for ‘Dunkerque’. However, ‘Liege’ wanted a fee payment, but ‘Dunkerque’ was unwilling to pay it, so the deal fail through and, as a result of it, Bosman was relegated from the first team, this causing his wages to decrease. Bosman took court action against the European Football authorities, the ‘Liege’ football club and the Belgian Football Association; he argued that payment of transfer fees after the expiry of the contract between player and his club conflicted with the EU citizen's right to free movement within employment. The courts that considered his suits referred them to the ECJ for preliminary ruling.

The decision: Sport is subject to Community law only in so far as it constitutes an economic activity. It is exactly Mr Bosman’s case, because he had entered into a contract of employment with a club in another Member State with a view to exercising gainful employment in that State. The transfer rules in question cannot be deemed comparable to the rules on ‘selling arrangements’ for goods which were held permissible under Keck and Mithouard. Proceeding from this findings, the ECJ ruled that the relevant football transfer regulations constituted an obstacle to freedom of movement for workers which was prohibited in principle by Article 48 of the Treaty. Bosman and all other EU football players were to be given the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within an EU Association to another club within an EU Association. Moreover, Article 48 of the EEC Treaty precludes the application of rules laid down by sporting associations under which, in matches in competitions which they organize, football clubs may field only a limited number of professional players who are nationals of other Member States.

By way of exception, the Court in this case has limited the retrospective effect of its interpretation – it cannot be relied upon with respect of transfer fee obligations and the like which arose before the date of this judgment.

Significance and implications: This ruling meant that Bosman and every other EU footballer were free to negotiate deals to any other EU-based team upon the expiry of their current contracts; they were also allowed to sign pre-contract deals with other clubs if they had six months remaining on their current deals. Besides, this ruling stopped UEFA imposing quotas on how many foreign players are allowed to play in a team at any one time. At the material time UEFA were imposing a quota on their European Cup competitions that allowed each club to field simultaneously no more than three non-nationals on match days. However, these quotas were not fully outlawed, because they were still preserved with respect to non-EU players.