Fifa rules that govern the way some football transfers work break the European Union’s laws, the highest European court has found.
A long-running legal battle between Lassana Diarra and Fifa has ended with the European Court of Justice finding in favour of the former Chelsea and Arsenal midfielder.
Diarra’s legal team challenged some of Fifa’s rules after the termination of his contract with Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow in 2014.
They argued some of the rules imposed by football’s global governing body restricted his freedom of movement and breached competition law, and sued Fifa for damages.
The court’s judgement says that, by refusing to provide Diarra with an international transfer certificate (ITC) for a proposed move to Belgian club Charleroi in 2015, Fifa demonstrated that its rules “impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club”.
The judgement also says those rules can hamper or even curtail the “relatively short” careers of players.
A Fifa spokesman said: “Fifa is satisfied that the legality of key principles of the transfer system have been reconfirmed in today’s ruling.
“The ruling only puts in question two paragraphs of two articles of the Fifa regulations on the status and transfer of players, which the national court is now invited to consider.”
Why did Diarra bring the case?
Former France international Diarra has been mired in a series of legal battles since his contract with Lokomotiv Moscow was terminated by the club in 2014.
Following a dispute with manager Leonid Kuchuk, Lokomotiv alleged Diarra refused to appear at training or accept a lower salary, and dismissed him three years before his deal was scheduled to expire.
In 2016 a Fifa ruling – backed up by the Court of Arbitration for Sport – found Diarra liable for breach of contract, ordering him to pay 10m euros (£8.4m) to Lokomotiv and suspending him from professional football for 15 months.
When Diarra subsequently agreed a deal to join Charleroi, the club sought assurances that they would not be liable to pay any compensation to Lokomotiv.
Fifa then refused to issue Charleroi with an ITC, required by clubs across the world to register a newly signed player, and so the deal collapsed.
Diarra’s lawyers contested this specific rule – which makes a club wishing to sign a player jointly liable for compensation to a player’s old club, and at risk of sporting sanctions, in cases where the player’s previous contract was terminated without just cause.
They also challenged a rule which allows the national association of a player’s former club to withhold an ITC where there was a dispute, which they said also hindered the move.
The court has determined that Fifa should not be able to use the ITC system to prevent players who have breached a contract from moving and working where they choose.
Parts of Fifa’s transfer rules will have to be revised to remain valid in the EU.
What does it all mean?
A statement from global players’ union Fifpro called the judgement “a major ruling” which it said “will change the landscape of football”, but added it would communicate further after “analysing the ruling in depth”.
Diarra’s lawyers called it a “total victory” and claimed any players impacted by a similar situation could claim compensation. They said the ruling would “speed up the modernisation of governance” at Fifa.
Fifa said it would “analyse the decision in co-ordination with other stakeholders before commenting further”.
Emilio Garcia, Fifa’s chief legal and compliance officer, later said: “It is important to clarify that today’s decision does not change the core principles of the transfer system at all.
“Fifa has been continuously improving that system for many years – not for its own benefit, but for the benefit of players, clubs, leagues and member associations, to ensure that players can train, be developed and have stability, while safeguarding the integrity of competitions by implementing a robust regulatory framework for the international transfer system.”
In essence, the court has determined that players should have more power to move and work where they wish, and that Fifa rules should be less restrictive.
The court’s view is that a player whose contract has been terminated, as in Diarra’s case, should be able to go and play in a different country without either the player or the new club being automatically required to pay significant compensation to the former club.
This gives greater power to players and their agents in the transfer market.
“The result could mean far-reaching consequences for the transfer system, similar to how the Bosman Ruling affected transfers in 1995,” sports barrister Yasin Patel told BBC Sport.
“Players may now be able to move more freely to other clubs by breaking with a contract as opposed to being tied to the club and contract. In addition, buying clubs may not have to pay compensation or claims.”
Sports finance expert Kieran Maguire warned that could lead to “unscrupulous people” effectively “gaming the system” by downing tools to seek a move.
“This could be something which could be exploited in the future,” he told Radio 5 Live.
“What’s prevented players from doing it in the past is if they move on elsewhere, the club that they join would have to pay a compensation fee as a form of transfer fee. This ruling says that I can now move to another club and no compensation is due.
“It has to be said the vast majority of footballers don’t want this to be the case – we all know people that push things at work in terms of dismissals and so on – but as far as the players are concerned this is a broader issue that he wasn’t able to be a professional footballer when he should have been earning money.
Maheta Molango, chief executive officer of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said it was an “important ruling which could have potentially far-reaching ramifications for the rights of players within the current transfer system”.
He added: “More widely, it demonstrates again that football cannot behave like it does not have to work within the same employment laws that apply to any other industry.”
The exact ramifications of the judgement will be made clear once Fifa puts forward its new regulations.
