Players' union FIFPro launched a "landmark" legal action against FIFA "in the hope of outlawing the transfer system and fundamentally changing the professional game," according to Owen Gibson of the London GUARDIAN. Having run out of patience with FIFA and UEFA "following long-running negotiations over reforms to the transfer system to protect players better," FIFPro’s lawyers filed a complaint in Brussels with the European Commission. FIFPro "wants to abolish transfer fees and make it easier for players to move between clubs while respecting contracts." It believes that "its members have less freedom of movement than other workers when a club is able to demand a fee for a footballer under contract." Other FIFPro objectives "include an end to the loan system, restrictions on squad sizes and the capping of payments to agents." FIFPro General Secretary Theo van Seggelen said, "Whatever happens, it is a historical moment not only for FIFPro but for professional football." In the complaint to the Directorate General of EU Competition, FIFPro argued that "several opt-outs from European law agreed under a 2001 settlement have not been adhered to and are no longer in the public interest." They argued that "the transfer system is anti-competitive and also breaches European law on restraint of trade and freedom of movement." The Commission "could take six to 12 months to reach a decision" and, if it rules in favor of FIFPro, lawyers estimate that "it could take one to two years of horse trading beyond that to come up with a new set of rules" (GUARDIAN, 9/17).
KINGS AND PAWNS: The PA reported the union feels that players "are being used as pawns in financial battles between major clubs." FIFPro President Philippe Piat said, "We are seeing that players are being turned into commodities. They are no longer human beings, and this is getting out of hand. There are some stars who are incredibly wealthy but then in small countries and small clubs there is almost slavery taking place" (PA, 9/18). REUTERS' Brian Homewood wrote Van Seggelen said that "it was not a case of players asking to be able to leave a club when they felt like it." He said, "More than 95 percent of the players are happy with their contract and happy with their club; they want the kids to go to school, they have a normal life; so I don't think that will happen." Top professionals are sometimes criticized for a perceived lack of loyalty to their clubs "with a recent case involving England winger Raheem Sterling who left Liverpool for Manchester City in acrimonious circumstances." But Van Seggelen said that "this was relatively isolated." FIFPro "described its complaint, in which it alleges the current transfer system governed by FIFA infringes European competition law, as the biggest challenge to that system since Belgian footballer Jean-Marc Bosman won his court case in 1995" (REUTERS, 9/19). In a separate article, Homewood wrote on a European level, "only a small number of clubs from the biggest leagues, such as Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, can afford the astronomical fees for the world's top players." As a result, "an elite dominates the Champions League." It "has also led to nearly all the world's top players becoming concentrated in a handful of leagues -- in England, Germany, France, Italy and Spain." Van Seggelen said, "We believe that it is possible in smaller countries to have an attractive national competition and that balance has to be there, otherwise in a couple of years we will only have 30 clubs in the world, and nobody wants that." FIFPro said that "the dominant clubs entrench their position in the market by inflating transfer fees and therefore creating barriers against other clubs to compete with them." FIFPro Dir Jonas Baer-Hoffmann: "Transfer fees are effectively a tax on employment because they represent deterrents for possible employers to acquire employees’ services" (REUTERS, 9/18).
