Lassana Diarra case - Bosman 2.0?

[strandty]

 

[G3079]

Tim Bak's comment makes sense, but O'Connell does not seem to understand the ruling at all. In no way does this verdict enable players to just walk out of a contract as they like or allow them to force the termination by their employers, and neither would the opposite be true for an at-will termination of a player's contract by their club.

 

[simonhch]

What "top court"? There is no court above the European Court of Justice in the EU. Their verdict is binding for any European court, in this case the Belgian court that the case is going back to after they asked the ECJ for their input on the interpretation and impact of the EU laws in this instance.

And nothing in their ruling would result in anything like what you are talking about in any conceivable scenario. I honestly do not understand how you could read their verdict, specifically which two articles they criticize, and arrive at the conclusion that players now could freely walk out of their contracts - much less for non-EU countries.

I had thought this was the court before the ECJ, my bad.

Well, we are all fecked then. Probably. Or maybe not at all.

 

[Chipper]

Hopefully just that.

Still potential for it to have wide reaching consequences. Depends on the amount of compensation in question and how many clubs may secretly induce the player, hoping to get away with it. Would assume there would be some, could even become widespread.

"Tapping up" is against the rules an literally no club abides by it.

 

[golden_blunder]

Football would be so much more interesting if they did away with football transfer fees all together and it was just purely down to salaries and agent fees (maybe). All teams operating within a salary cap of course.

Players should be able to move freely between clubs each year if they choose too, would be an interesting proposition. Obviously it would never happen.

You’d kill small clubs who might survive on developing a young player to sell on to a bigger club.

 

[terraloo]

Was he ostracised at all for not agreeing to the cut? Unfair amounts of pressure put on him to take it etc. do you know? That would play a big part in how I felt aboit it. Would assume that's potentially part of his case or his argument.

From his point of view, it sounds like he could be claiming something similar to constrctive dismissal. That the club made his workplace a hostile environment so he was in the right to not train. The club say no, you not training is a big breach of your responsibility to us, and therefore we're sacking you. We can't let you just join another team for nothing as we paid money for your registration and we're suing.

My mind has now wandered to another wacky potential siituation if players could just walk at any time without a club having some measure to prevent it and holding their registration or potentially being able to sue them. A player could 'retire' the day after signing for a team, after they'd paid a transfer fee then sign for someone else immediately after 'changing their mind' about qutting the game. There's no transfer system at all if you can do that sort of thing.

I suspect that they did everything they could to force him out because he refused a pay cut. That would be his right and if that was the case but I would imagine the club did want most clubs , and yes I include Chelsea in that, they try to create an environment where a dissenting player is almost bullied into submission either they leave or accept new terms. However once a player fails to fulfil their side of the contract then they can and often are “ sacked” for gross misconduct.

I don’t know what the final arrangement was when he signed initially but no doubt the club had invested in agents fees, possibly a relocation amount etc even if a fee hadn’t been paid so would be looking for their money back so would be relying on FIFAs rules around players.

It will be interesting how this panes out but unless I have misread the situation I am not sure it’s quite the victory that Fipro or indeed the player are suggesting indeed there is almost certainly going to be an impact down through the levels of football simply because transfer fees below the elite levels will in all likelihood be eroded even further

In a way the players already have the right after x number of years to buy themselves out of their contracts something that was a consequence of the Webster ruling which again followed EU court rulings

It is possible that just like when it comes to youngsters moving from one football jurisdiction ( inside the EU that can move before aged 18 whereas in the bulk of federations the player has to be 18 that FIFA set a different set of rules.

No idea how it plays out but would be real interesting as it could potentially impact negatively on EU based clubs if they have to release players for just an arbitrary compensation sum recoverable from the player but can’t use the same tactic if they buy from a non EU club.

 

[ATXRedDevil]

Could we have done this with Ronaldo then? Sack him for bringing the club into disrepute and then he wouldn't have been able to sign for other clubs?

I think we absolutely could have done that - surely his actions constituted a breach under his contract. But it would have been a massive headache, so both parties did the reasonable thing and terminated the contract by mutual agreement.

Now, if he were ten years younger and in his peak, that’s where things get interesting because he would have had major sell on value unlike when he was in his late 30s and earning a fortune.

That’s where this decision has interesting implications.

I am but a mere US-based securities lawyer not versed in EU law and not a sports and entertainment lawyer, but this is all fascinating stuff for me.

 

[G3079]

Here's the press release by the ECJ: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-10/cp240172en.pdf
I recommend reading it, as it clearly states which regulations the court took offense with, and why.

 

[cotumely]

Will this affect British clubs, as the UK isn’t under the aegis of the ECJ?

 

[leoric]

i’d be interested to see a model that said you could only sell academy graduates.

Yeah I think that would make sense and would be a real incentive for clubs to develop young players.

 

[rimaldo]

Yeah I think that would make sense and would be a real incentive for clubs to develop young players.

i’m sure it would have some knock on effects somewhere, like big clubs hoarding all the talent and paying for parent’s feck pads to get their kids close enough for academy rules. but i’m just the ideas guy, i don’t care about consequences.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

What "top court"? There is no court above the European Court of Justice in the EU. Their verdict is binding for any European court, in this case the Belgian court that the case is going back to after they asked the ECJ for their input on the interpretation and impact of the EU laws in this instance.

And nothing in their ruling would result in anything like what you are talking about in any conceivable scenario. I honestly do not understand how you could read their verdict, specifically which two articles they criticize, and arrive at the conclusion that players now could freely walk out of their contracts - much less for non-EU countries.

Think they can appeal yeah? But given the complete deliberation and detailed/clear judgement, it’s hard to see how someone else could say “nah, they got this completely wrong”….. the ECJ isn’t stupid like PGMOL or VAR.

 

[G3079]

Think they can appeal yeah? But given the complete deliberation and detailed/clear judgement, it’s hard to see how someone else could say “nah, they got this completely wrong”….. the ECJ isn’t stupid like PGMOL or VAR.

There is no court to appeal to when you're already at the highest court in the food chain. The ECJ's rulings are final.
It is possible is to appeal how the individual member states translate European law into local law, as the individual member states have some freedom in how they implement the common framework into their own laws, as long as they stay with in the confines of that framework. But the framework itself, as laid out and interpreted by the ECJ like in this case, that cannot be appealed. So if they say that FIFA's rules infringe on the rights of their citizens, that's that.

And personally, I don't see where the ECJ is wrong in their ruling here.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Would be a whole lot of fun if City get relegated and this mechanism is used for the squad to empty.

No idea if the EU law is one we ‘Kept’ after the Big Beautiful Brexit.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

There is no court to appeal to when you're already at the highest court in the food chain. The ECJ's rulings are final.
It is possible is to appeal how the individual member states translate European law into local law, as the individual member states have some freedom in how they implement the common framework into their own laws, as long as they stay with in the confines of that framework. But the framework itself, as laid out and interpreted by the ECJ like in this case, that cannot be appealed. So if they say that FIFA's rules infringe on the rights of their citizens, that's that.

And personally, I don't see where the ECJ is wrong in their ruling here.

Sounds like you’re a legal expert so won’t doubt it.

The media reports I’ve read are probably wrong….. “Fifa now has one final chance to argue differently when it makes its their case to the Belgian appeal court where this case is being heard. The CJEU says the plea will have to be convincing.“

 

[ElCuddlos]

This may not have much of an effect at all. The regulations behind the Webster ruling have been in place since 2001 and there have only been a handful of cases that have taken advantage of it. It seems there is some kind of gentleman's agreement between clubs to basically ignore it.

 

[P-Nut]

Isn't the ramifications that fifa will change the rules due to the fact they'll be unlawful in a lot of countries. So the fact we're outside the EU doesn't matter either way. The rules will change for all of football not just Europe

 

[devilish]

Hope this would work both ways and we can get rid of players just as easily.

but we won't. We just love our injury prone players who spend years at the club doing nothing and then they play the martyrs afterwards