ABSTRACT
English professional football’s relationship with the courts predates the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ’s) decision in Belgian FA v Bosman (1996) by 100 years. Bosman, notoriously, prevents clubs from demanding ‘transfer fees’ for out-of-contract players who move from one club to another and prevents the imposition of restrictions on the number of ‘foreigners’ who can play for a particular club. The Bosman ruling itself, and its consequences, are outside the scope of this paper (see Morris et al, 1996, for discussion). The author’s fear is that many smaller professional clubs will no longer exist in 20 years’ time, partly as a consequence of Bosman, although it should be said that many others eschew this Doomsday scenario and assert that such fears are ‘almost certainly unfounded’ (Morris et al, 1996, p 902). Whatever the long term ramifications, it is undoubtedly the case that never again will small clubs’ main source of revenue – the transfer fees paid by bigger clubs for the smaller ones’ best players – be available in respect of players whose contract with the smaller club has expired. Those players are now free to move to whichever club offers them the best personal deal (in terms of salary and duration of contract), and their previous club receives not a penny from the transaction.
