Bosman at 30: Fifa still facing legal revolution

Three decades on from ruling that shaped transfer market, a Dutch lawyer is calling for further player power at clubs

- Paul Macinnes

On 15 December 1995, judges at the European court of justice (CJEU) took two minutes to bring an end to a legal process that had lasted five years.

The Bosman rule, as it was known, was to stand, the judges said. European football clubs were no longer allowed to demand transfer fees for players whose contracts had expired. The man whose dogged legal pursuit had brought about these changes, Jean-Marc Bosman, emerged from a crowd of cameras to give his verdict. “I have got to the top of the mountain and I am now very tired,” he said.

For Bosman himself, it was downhill from there. “I got a lot of promises but never received anything,” he told the Observer in 2015, claiming he “earned nothing” from the changes that ensued. He went bankrupt, was treated for alcoholism and was found guilty of assault against his then partner in 2013. There can be no argument, however, that the ruling was historic and, 30 years on, it has helped bring about a revolution in the sport from which the man himself was ultimately shunned.