It is this Friday, October 4 that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will deliver its decision in the Lassana Diarra case. It could revolutionize the transfer window and player contracts.
It is a sprawling issue likely to lead to a revolution in the world of football. A decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) expected this Friday, October 3 in the Lassana Diarra case could shake up the transfer system by allowing a player to unilaterally terminate his contract.
“In a way, the Lassana Diarra affair is the Bosman 2.0 affair,” Belgian lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont told AFP, who defends Diarra and was already involved thirty years ago with the Belgian. Jean-Marc Bosman, at the origin of the 1995 ruling which bears his name and put an end to quotas for foreign players in a club.
For once, a decisive match for international football is being played in Luxembourg, the seat of this European jurisdiction. “If this judgment reflects the conclusions of the advocate general of the CJEU, the current Fifa transfer system will have come to an end,” adds Me Dupont. The rules which had prevented Diarra from finding a new employer club “violate the free movement of workers”, he asserts.
The case dates back to 2014
The lawyer highlights the conclusions rendered on April 30 by the first advocate general of the Court of Justice, the Pole Maciej Szpunar, according to whom Fifa rules “limiting the ability of clubs to recruit” would be contrary to the principle of free competition within the EU. Other jurists familiar with the case are more measured and do not foresee a “Lassana Diarra judgment” of the magnitude of the Bosman judgment. The case of the Belgian player, which already concerned the free movement of players, shattered all the rules limiting players of different nationalities in club squads, liberalizing the transfer market in Europe.
That concerning the dispute between the former French international (34 caps) with Lokomotiv could allow a player “in the loft”, that is to say clearly excluded from the group, to unilaterally terminate his contract without his future club bears no responsibility for the legal risks and the fine it could incur. The story goes back ten years. In 2014, “Lass” got angry with the Moscow railway workers’ club because it did not accept a drastic reduction in his salary. Lokomotiv had claimed 20 million euros, reduced to 10.5 million EUR, for the damage.
According to FIFA regulations, if a player terminates his contract unilaterally and “without just cause”, he must pay compensation which includes his remuneration and benefits until the end of his contract. And a purchasing club could be affected by compensation. For his part, the player requested six million euros from Fifa, believing that its transfer rules had prevented him from practicing his profession during most of the 2014-2015 season. With this sword of Damocles, the clubs were not rushing to recruit Diarra. In Belgium, Charleroi had given up, afraid of the possible legal and financial consequences.
Many twists and turns
The former Blue, who bounced back at OM in 2015, decided to take the matter to court, supported by the global players’ union, Fifpro. After several twists and turns, the Belgian court seized, whose jurisdiction FIFA contested, asked a so-called “preliminary” question to the CJEU in 2022. In essence the question was as follows: is the regulation of the status and transfer of players compatible with EU competition law and free movement? According to Advocate General Szpunar, the provisions applied by Fifa “are likely to discourage and dissuade clubs from hiring the player for fear of a financial risk”.
“Limiting the ability of clubs to recruit players necessarily affects competition between clubs on the market for the acquisition of professional players,” the Polish lawyer further argued. If the CJEU were to follow this opinion, the players could, if they one day find themselves in the loft, leave their club without fear of being legally stuck afterwards.
