FIFPro launch legal action against FIFA

The International Federation of Professional Footballers Associations, FIFPro, has filed a legal action with the Directorate General Competition of the European Commission in Brussel challenging FIFA's Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP).

FIFPro calls the current FIFA regulations "anti-competivive, unjustified and illegal" in the press release following the complaint.

“The European Commission holds the key to reforming the professional football industry more than any internal governance reform process can, by simply applying the law,” said FIFPro President, Philippe Piat.

“FIFA fails to administer professional football the same way it has failed to govern itself. Commercial interests of a few prevail, while the majority of players and clubs are disadvantaged. It is time the rule of law prevails over the interests of cartels. The ones benefiting from this are few – major clubs, agents and third party owners. The ones undermined are many and we now call for change.”

FIFPro argues that the current transfer system can no longer be justified with a reference to the 'specifity of sport' and FIFPro further finds that the the system has failed in attaining the objectives it set out to achieve.

The legal action is a move in a strategy to stabalise the football industry in order to:

• "Create the highest possible number of quality jobs for players based on a sustainable and resilient industry that embraces integrity, greater levels of financial solidarity, competition and enhanced individual and collective labour relations.
• Ensure that the right of any worker to receive his salary is honored, a basic right so often abused in world football.
• Ensures reciprocity of rights and obligations by both clubs and players, for the breach or termination of a contract"

According to FIFPro, the new legal action will challenge the transfer system to a degree that has not been seen since the Jean-Marc Bosman ruling of 1995, which established the right for players to move freely from one employer to another after a contract had expired.