What actually happened?
In the past, players were far more restricted by their contracts. If a player’s contract was running out and he wanted to leave the club, it still counted for nothing unless his club agreed to a transfer; if they didn’t, the contract would continue to run past its end date and the player would remain at the club. However, when Jean-Marc Bosman was refused a move to French side Dunkerque after they failed to meet RFC Liège’s transfer fee demand, he was forced to remain at the Belgian club. Unhappy enough at being ‘imprisoned’, his wages were then reduced by his club as he was no longer considered a first team player.
With this breaking point, he took his case to the European Court of Justice where, in 1995, the Bosman ruling was passed as law. This allowed players to freely move between clubs when their contracts expired, meaning that clubs were only in charge of a player for as long as he was contracted; when the contract expired, the club no longer had the power to keep the player for as long as they chose.
The Bosman ruling also prohibited quotas on foreign players at clubs (although some countries still have limits on non-EU nationals) meaning that teams could search abroad and bring in talented players from all over the world.
Plant football was changed forever. And it is amazing to think just how different football would be today were it not for Jean-Marc Bosman. The Football Writer investigates some of the changes that have been affected thanks to the Belgian…
Player Power: Clubs
By giving players the freedom to move when their contracts expired suddenly placed so much more power in their hands. Previously, they would only be allowed to move once their club had agreed to a transfer, but with this no longer a necessity, players could simply run their contracts down (refusing to sign a new one) and walk away on a free. There have been several high profile changes since the Bosman ruling; Sol Campbell, Edgar Davids and Steve McManaman are some of the biggest who walked out on their clubs and signed with top, rival teams. Their clubs were losing some of their biggest assets, yet had little control over it.
But the ability to sign players on free transfer at the end of their contracts is not the biggest difficulty that has faced clubs. Instead, it is this dilemma; with players entering the final year of their contract, they are forced to sell their stars at deflated prices or risk losing the player on a free (unless you offer a huge, vastly improved contract, which we’ll get to soon).
The highest profile example of this recently is that of Robin van Persie: the club’s star player, the Dutchman made the switch to Old Trafford having entered the final year of his contract at Arsenal for just £24m – an absolute bargain in modern football, particularly if we look at the impact he has made in Manchester. Had the Bosman ruling not been enforced, Arsenal would have been in a far stronger position to keep hold of their talisman as they wouldn’t have been forced to sell him; there was no risk of losing him, and so any transfer fee would be negotiated on their terms.
Generally speaking, with clubs not having these worries that players may walk out on them would result in their squads remaining largely intact, and so there would probably be less player movement overall.
Player Power: Players
Players have been able to choose their next destination themselves since the Bosman ruling due to the threat that they may leave the club for free. This shift of power has unfortunately led to the ridiculous inflation within football, which has risen at such an exponential rate. Of course, in the current economic state, inflation was inevitable – but not at the rate it has risen. The reason for this? Greedy players and agents can ‘blackmail’ their club by demanding ridiculous salaries, knowing that other clubs will in turn scramble to battle out with each other ‘who is offering the best financial package’ in order to secure the player’s services.
This has led to the astronomical salaries of players, with top earners rising well above £200k per week; more than 3 times what the best players in the world were earning just 10 years ago! It is an unbelievable, if not ludicrous amount to be paid for kicking a ball, but while the players have this power they can demand the salaries that they want.
Moving away from contracts we can also look simply at the transfer fees that are being negotiated. It cannot be seen as a coincidence that when the Bosman ruling was passed, the record transfer fee was Gianluigi Lentini’s £13m; 102 years since the first player to command a three figure transfer (Groves, £100). Yet in just 14 years since the ruling was passed, the record transfer fee has risen by £67m courtesy of Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid – a phenomenal rise indicating the fight between clubs.
The Fans
The inflation within football has also, unfortunately, caused a knock on effect to us, the fans. With clubs apparently turning into business, commodities will inevitably be expensive, yet it is a risk that hopes to pay off. Buying better players > improved club performance > more interest from top players > more prize money to invest in such top players.
But prize money isn’t completely going to fund the club, and with owners reluctant to dip into their own pockets (it wouldn’t be a very positive business move to spend vast sums), who else is going to help pay the wages of these poor players? Yup: the fans. Thus we have endured rising costs of tickets, merchandise, food and drink… Everything has risen, leaving us out of pocket in these hard times. Fan prices would surely not have risen as much if the costs involved in the game hadn’t risen so dramatically, yet unfortunately we have to foot the bill, turning a football match into an expensive day out.