Acted on Friday by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the Diarra ruling will revolutionize future transfer markets and rebuild the economic balance of the world of football. Antoine Duvalsenior researcher at the Center for International and European Sports Law at the ASSER Institute, explains these consequences in an interview with RMC Sport.
The revolution is underway. Complex from a legal point of view, the Lassana Diarra affair led to a future total overhaul of the transfer model in the world of football, since the CJEU ruled that certain FIFA rules on player transfers infringed EU law, in particular on the free movement of players. workers. Face of this matter, Lassana Diarra had, in 2013, unilaterally terminated his contract at Lokomotiv Moscow without being able to sign for Charleroi, since FIFA regulations allowed the Russian club not to issue the player with an international transfer certificate, essential to sign elsewhere.
« This decision will change a lot of things », assures RMC Sport Antoine Duvalsenior researcher at the Center for International and European Sports Law at the ASSER Institute and specialist on the subject, who recalls that a transfer is nothing more than a “ transaction between two clubs to resolve a conflict of sorts between a club and its player, because there has been a termination of a fixed-term employment contract » and that the selling club has nothing more than “ the right to claim compensation for termination of a fixed-term employment contract ».
L’Diarra stop would therefore favor the unilateral termination of the contract on the part of the player, made almost impossible previously by the exorbitant amounts owed to the clubs in these situations. By this decision, the CJEU asks FIFA, again according to Antoine Duval, “ ensure that this compensation is calculated and aligned with common labor law ” in order to ” reduce the uncertainty around the compensation due and at the same time limit the amount of this compensation to reasonable costs ».
But the main consequence concerns clubs and their economic model. Today, the vast majority of them depend, in addition to income linked to television rights, on the transfer market and their sales made during it in order to balance their accounts. The prospect of a unilateral termination of contract decided by the player and which, consequently, would wipe out a major source of income, makes us fear the worst. While a trickle-down mechanism had been put in place for the richest clubs – particularly from the Premier League – who were recruiting in poorer and more dependent markets – France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, etc. – this could shatter.
« The financial imbalance which was partly filled by the transfer market will be turned upside downconfirms the specialist. There was a sort of very imperfect redistribution mechanism. (…) This mechanism is now very seriously threatened. This judgment in any case threatens all clubs which depend on transfers to balance their accounts. We must work very quickly at the European level to try to put in place a system which will guarantee an alternative method for redistributing funds or, if agreed with FIFPro, to maintain a form of transfer system. ».
With the objective, in pursuit of this Diarra ruling, to “ ensure there is a minimum of financial fairness that better protects workers’ rights ”, while transactions “ with amounts also disconnected from the residual salaries owed to the players » inevitably risks disappearing. Just like the growing trend of conflicts between clubs and players (loft created by clubs to force a departure, or player strike with the same goal) with more fragile fixed-term contracts and a rebalancing of power between the two parties.
Photo credits: Loic Baratoux/FEP/Icon Sport
Related News :