Antoine Duval
Ben Van Rompuy
Ben Van Rompuy
This chapter retraces the emergence of a new FIFA transfer system in the wake of the Bosman ruling. It purposes to show the
complexity and plurality of the legal game surrounding the regulation of global football. After the Bosman ruling many believed
it was a comeback of the state in the self-regulatory sphere of sports regulation. Yet, the legal interaction between EU law
and the private rules of FIFA regulating the transfers of football players across borders is more intricate. As we will show,
the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (FIFA RSTP) put in place after the Bosman ruling were negotiated
under the shadow of an EU Competition law investigation triggered by the EU Commission. These negotiations involving a wide
range of actors ended in 2001 with an agreement signed between the EU Commission and UEFA and FIFA. Thereafter, a reformed
transnational system was put in place by FIFA to regulate international transfers of football players and enshrined in the
FIFA RSTP. This legislative story illustrates the public-private nature of transnational law-making in the sporting world.
Instead of perceiving these transnational rules as purely self-regulatory or purely subjected to national or European law,
this case study demonstrates that we need to better grasp the fact that in reality both orientations are in tension and impossible
to disentangle.