At the request of Belgian justice, the high court established in Luxembourg examined the case of former French international Lassana Diarra who had contested, ten years ago, the conditions of his departure from Lokomotiv Moscow.
Due to a drastic reduction in his salary, Diarra left the Moscow club, but the latter deemed the break unfair and demanded 20 million euros from him, reduced to 10.5 million EUR.
Consequence: the Belgian club Charleroi finally gave up recruiting the Frenchman for fear of having to assume part of these penalties, in accordance with the FIFA regulations studied by the CJEU.
These rules “are likely to hinder the freedom of movement of professional footballers”, the Court ruled on Friday.
The court considers that they “place on these players and on the clubs wishing to engage them significant legal risks, unpredictable and potentially very high financial risks as well as major sporting risks, which, taken together, are likely to hamper the international transfer of players.
“Disproportionate compensation”
“The entire economic logic behind the transfer market is undermined today,” Pieter Paepe, the lawyer for Fifpro, the international players’ union, told AFP.
“The Court does not say that the players have the right to terminate their contract without any consequences, but that the compensation is disproportionate and that the unamortized transfer sum cannot be included”, as requested by Lokomotiv. Diarra, adds the Belgian lawyer, who also defends the UNFP, the French players’ union.
“Fifa also provides for a sporting sanction against the player, and this is also disproportionate for the CJEU,” adds Me Paepe.
These disputed rules “are intended to restrict, or even prevent, cross-border competition in which all professional Football clubs established in the Union could engage”, considers the CJEU in its judgment.
She had been asked a preliminary question by the Mons Court of Appeal, Diarra having first brought the matter before the Belgian courts.
The CJEU now gives it back, after having said European law: “Subject to verification” by this Belgian court of appeal, these Fifa rules restricting competition “do not seem essential or necessary”.
“Only two paragraphs”
Belgian lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont, who defends the now retired 39-year-old French player, welcomed this “major decision for the regulation of the labor market in football”.
Mr. Dupont was already at work 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 the quotas of foreign players in a club, a revolution at the time.
If the lawyer first rejoiced in his press release for his client – “For Lassana Diarra, it is a total victory”, he enjoins “all professional players who have been affected by these illegal rules (in force since 2001)” to “request full compensation for their damages”.
Fifa does not have the same reading, “satisfied that the legality of the key principles of the transfer system has been reconfirmed”.
It “only calls into question two paragraphs of two articles of the Fifa regulations on the status and transfer of players”, believes the International Federation.
For Fifa, the ruling does not revolutionize its transfer system, but only asks it to review one rule: for the moment a club that would like to recruit a player who has broken his contract is required to be responsible for the fine incurred. , a point that the International Federation seems ready to modify.
The CJEU’s ruling could, however, have much more significant consequences according to British lawyer Ian Giles, of the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm.
“It is entirely possible that this means that players may feel that they can now break their contracts and sign with new clubs, without the selling club being able to keep them or demand large transfer fees,” he explains.
And the Lassana Diarra affair could then become “the Bosman 2.0 affair”, as Jean-Louis Dupont, the lawyer for the two players, estimated.
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