Jean-Marc Bosman is a bitter man.
The Belgian’s five-year court battle ended victoriously in 1995, allowing players to move without transfer fees and effectively ending European leagues from limiting players from other European countries. Soccer’s most famous court ruling opened opportunities in the world’s richest leagues.
But now, he’s asking himself whether he really won anything.
”He gave his career to a court case to serve a cause and he sees that the transfer fees are still there, quotas on homegrown players are making a comeback and the rich clubs are richer and the poor ones are poorer,” his lawyer, Luc Misson, said in a telephone interview.
Misson became famous by winning the case before the European Court of Justice, the highest in the European Union.
Bosman refused to be interviewed for Thursday’s 10-year anniversary, and said he feels like he is being wheeled out for the occasion only to be dumped again immediately afterward.
”What is in it for me?” he said.
For five years, nearly everybody asked that same question about Bosman.
A Belgian journeyman midfielder from eastern Liege whose career never developed much higher than the youth international level, he challenged the transfer system when he could not sign with the club of his choice even after his contract with FC Liege expired.
Contractual rights of players were held by clubs, even after the contract expired, until the team sold it to another club.
Because of the suit, he had to move back in with his parents and his marriage suffered. He said he was even offered â,¬750 000 to quit the case, but refused. Together with Misson, he won, and on December 15 1995, his victory shook the financial structure of professional soccer.
Clubs could no longer rely on the revenue of transfer fees for out-of-contract players. And by opening the doors to an influx of non-national players by the abolishment of the home-player quotas, richer clubs were free to create virtual multinational super teams.
The name Bosman became a curse for most in soccer and he became a pariah.
Uefa chief executive Lars-Christer Olsson said, however, there was more than Bosman that threatened the traditions of the game.
”We should not always blame Bosman. Football was ill prepared,” Olsson said.
At the same time, there was the exponential growth of the television rights and the marketing boom.
”It has had a tremendous effect on the wealth of clubs,” said Olsson, who said the revenue from the 2008 European Championship in Switzerland-Austria will be 10 times higher than the money generated by the 1996 European Championship in England.
Misson argued it was not his client who wreaked havoc but blamed the soccer authorities for not making sure the newfound wealth was properly distributed.
”Television rights remained in big countries and big clubs, with the result that the international competitions are totally unbalanced,” he said.
Rich clubs bought players effectively to bench them, with the main purpose to make sure other clubs could not sign them, Olsson and others said.
By 2001, Italy’s Juventus was able to command a reported $65-million transfer fee for Zinedine Zidane from Real Madrid, $7-million of which went to the Frenchman.
In comparison, Bosman was a struggler. He started his case when he was 25 and in the prime of his career, and one year after he won he had to leave third division Vise because he said he could not make a living out of it. Now, Misson says, he lives off his court indemnities.
Meanwhile, many feel soccer clubs are steadily negating the effects of the Bosman ruling.
Most players are signed to long-term contracts and Misson said clubs pressure them into this to make sure they can sell them for a fee before the contract runs out.
”An end-of-contract player has become extremely rare,” Misson said.
At the same time, Uefa and Fifa are negotiating to reimpose some sort of home-player minimum through the negotiations with EU authorities on quotas for locally trained players.
Whatever the outcome, Bosman is no longer likely to figure in any of it.
”A player always wants to stay in soccer, but he is an outcast for the rest of his life,” Misson said. — Sapa-AP