Bosman: One for All …
| Date | 01 April 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X1502200202 |
| Published date | 01 April 2015 |
| Author | Stefaan Van den Bogaert |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
174 22 MJ 2 (2015)
EDITORIAL
BOSMAN: ONE FOR ALL …
S V B*
Case number C-415/93 could have been an ordinar y case for the Court of Justice, t hirteen
to the dozen, based on a request for a prelimi nary rul ing from a lower Belgian court
concerning the interpretat ion of Articles45, 101 and 102 TFEU (the t hen Articles48, 85
and 86 EEC).1 However, things did turn out di erently, for the case concerned footbal l –
‘King Football ’. Man’s favourite pasti me all over the globe, or as the late Pope John Paul II
once famously phrased it, ‘[a]mongst all unimpor tant subjects, football is by far t he most
important’. And so it went that the judgment t he Court of Justice of the European Union
rendered on 15December 1995 in the dispute between a lone Belgian footbal l player
called Jean-Marc Bosma n and virtu ally the entire footba ll establishment, represented
by his club and the national and Eu ropean football federation, constitutes the most wel l-
known decision in its histor y outside purely legal circles.
e Court decided the legal battle in favour of the player.2 First ly, it le no doubt
that sport forms part of EU law insofa r as it constitutes an economic activ ity withi n
the meaning of what was t hen the EEC Treaty, thereby unequivocally con rming its
principled statement to this e ect from the Wal ra ve ruling two dec ades earlier.3 Secondly,
it brought an abrupt end to the long-standing footbal l pract ice of paying transfer sums
when players move between clubs a er the expiry of their contracts. irdly, almost
in passing and unnot iced by many, the Court dismissed the existing ‘3+2’ nationalit y
clauses, forcefully endorsi ng the cardina l Treaty prohibition of discrimination on
grounds of nat ionality.
e Court’s ruli ng came as a realit y check, a rude wake-up call for the sporting
authorities. With hindsight, that should not have been the case. Sporting federations
should have seen this coming. Admit tedly, the transfer rules had prev iously survived a
legal challenge before the Eu ropean Commission of Human Rights in St rasbourg in X v.
* Professor of Europea n law and Director of the Eu ropa Institute, Leiden Uni versity.
1 Case C-415/93 URBSFA v. Bosman, EU:C:1995:463.
2 For more info, see S. Van den Bogaer t, Practical Regul ation of the Mobility of Spor tsmen in the EU Post
Bosman (Kluwer Law Internat ional, 2005).
3 Case 36/74 Walrave and Koch v. UCI, EU:C:1974:140, para. 4.
To continue reading
Request your trial