Could players' legal action leave Fifa counting the cost?

Lawyer involved in Bosman ruling is helping players seek compensation from Fifa for restricting career earnings

- Paul MacInnes Nick Ames

The tectonic tensions in the world of football produced a seismic tremor last week. News emerged from the Netherlands of a class action that promised to seek compensation for players whose careers - the case claimed - had been blighted by Fifa's rules.

The scale of the action, undertaken by the group Justice For Players, is potentially vast: it holds that every active professional player, male or female, since 2002 could claim against Fifa for about 8% of their career earnings.

Coming as a consequence of the ruling by the European court of justice (CJEU) on the Lassana Diarra case last year, the class action is considered exceptional by many in football because it has the potential to hit a governing body hard in the pocket. Should enough players and former players join, and were it to be successful, Fifa could be liable for a sum in the billions.

Whether that materialises is another matter. The Guardian has spoken to multiple figures within the game, including those close to the JFP action, who regard the likely outcome as one that ends in negotiation, with the hope of achieving substantial systemic changes.

The Diarra judgment found that Fifa rules relating to the authorisation of transfers for players restricted freedom of movement, a key tenet of EU law, and that rules requiring buying clubs to cover the cost of compensation for a player who breaks a contract "without just cause" are anticompetitive.