ABSTRACT
In August 2001, long before financial fair play, homegrown player rules or social dialogue were part of football’s governance structures, FIFA and FIFPro (the international players’ union) concluded a framework agreement that would govern the employment conditions of the world’s professional players, to include new structures that would hear disputes arising from their contract terms. Although the Bosman ruling had helped focus collective minds and convinced the governing bodies of the need for change, FIFPro’s contribution to the new arrangements had been a more direct consequence of the European Commission’s insistence, in October 2000, that any new structures which impacted on free movement must have the clear support of the players – a requirement which continues to elude Rugby Super League and many other sporting federations. Football has been able to embark on that process more easily because the employers have historically ‘organised themselves into global and regional entities and thereby (provided) a “target” for international unions wishing to engage in collective bargaining’ with it (Dabscheck, 2003: 88), but this structure is often lacking in other European team sports, and weak or under-resourced players’ organisations have been less able to take advantage of the post-Bosman landscape. The emergence of football’s dispute resolution provisions is a consequence of the direct intervention of European law-and policy-makers and the opportunities presented by the organisational framework of the sport, but also of a willingness on the part of employers and players’ representatives to cooperate more closely. FIFPro’s success in this regard should provide encouragement to other sports-sector employee organisations, regardless of whether they use social dialogue or traditional collective bargaining to pursue legitimate aims and improved dispute resolution systems.
