Europe's top clubs want int'l players' union FIFPro to "withdraw a threatened legal challenge to football's transfer system," according to Graham Dunbar of the AP. European Club Association Chair Karl-Heinz Rummenigge urged the 65,000-member union on Tuesday to "keep football out of courts." He said, "It can't be the sense of football that we have to find solutions via legal claims. I am still a friend of the (transfer) market." The legal threat should be debated on Wednesday at UEFA headquarters by its professional football strategy council, which includes ECA and FIFPro officials (AP, 9/8). ESPN's Stephan Uersfeld reported Rummenigge has blamed former Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman for the recent "explosion" in transfer spending. Bosman won a landmark case at the European Court of Justice in '95, which has meant players in the European Union can "leave their clubs on a free transfer once their contract expires." Rummenigge said that the ruling is the "root cause of the increase in spending" that saw Premier League clubs spend a record £870M ($1.34B) this summer while Bundesliga clubs broke the €400M ($448M) barrier for the first time. He said, "I like to remind everyone that all those numbers and explosions on the transfer market and with salaries have been caused by Bosman. I believe that you should be proud of it, but that it's a problem" (ESPN, 9/9).
