‘I can just move’ – ‘FIFA lawsuit would be major power shift for Isak to Liverpool’
Alexander Isak and other players may be able to walk away from their clubs for a set fee in the future.
That is according to football finance expert Dan Plumley, who revealed to Football Insider that the lawsuit being levied against FIFA could cause a seismic shift in the power balance of the sport.
Former Chelsea, Arsenal, and Portsmouth midfielder Lassana Diarra was ordered by FIFA to pay his former side Lokomotiv Moscow €10million (£8.7m) after cancelling his contract one year into a four-year deal, reports The Times.
However, after taking his case to the European Court of Justice (CJEU), the court then ruled that some FIFA restrictions on a player’s “ability to seek a deal with another club after unilaterally terminating a contract hinder the EU’s free movement and competition laws.”
A class action from a group called Justice For Players is now seeking compensation worth billions of pounds due to “restrictive transfer rules”.
FIFA lawsuit compared to Bosman ruling
This article contains exclusive comment from Dan Plumley, a football finance expert and senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.
Under FIFA’s current rules, players are prevented from leaving a club unless their contract runs out or another club pays a fee for the player.
But CJEU’s ruling could see transfers being brought into line with other professions, where someone is allowed to leave their job even if they are midway through a contract with the company.
This could theoretically see a player like Alexander Isak join Liverpool without the need for a drawn-out transfer saga.
Isak could be in breach of his Newcastle contract if he refuses to play for the club this season, but a change to the rules could allow the Swedish striker to avoid the debacle that has unfolded, as he may be able to just say “I can move” and leave.
Plumley explained to Football Insider exclusively: “I think it’s really interesting. If we look at what could happen hypothetically and everything we’ve seen with this case so far.
“People talk about it in comparison to the Bosman ruling in 1995, it could be the biggest shift we’ve seen in a number of years.
“Ultimately, what this comes down to is, if this were to go the way of the players in this regard, and with the case and the way it’s looking, you would be looking at a big power shift from club to player in that transfer market, which is what we saw 30 years ago.
“But this would be on another level now, given the way the game’s gone, so it would shift that balance of power quite substantially to the players.
“And if they are allowed then to walk away at any point, not just walk away on a free. If it does go down that road, then the likelihood of a player such as Isak just saying, well, okay, now, I want to move, because now I can just move, is plausible in the future.
“We don’t know the intricacies of that yet, and what that would look like, of course. How that legislation is written up would take some work.
“What does it mean to do that financially is something that we don’t know yet, but what we’re certainly looking at here is a huge shift in the balance of power.
“It would be shifting even more so now onto the players. And what you would then see in response is clubs being really careful about how they set their contracts out, how they set their agreements.
“I think we would see more short-term deals than long-term deals, that kind of thing. But all that’s a little bit unknown at the minute.
“It’s certainly looking at shifting that balance of power to the player.”
FIFA want Liverpool at next Club World Cup
Football’s main governing body never seems far from a dispute or a debacle and the latest one that is brewing, aside from a humungous class action being levied against them, relates to the next Club World Cup.
Chelsea may not be invited to the 2029 Club World Cup, as FIFA are reviewing their participation rules for the next edition of the tournament, according to The Telegraph.
The governing body are unhappy that the tournament did not involve Spain or England’s champions from last season, Barcelona and Liverpool.
FIFA want to expand the tournament to 48 teams from 32, but there would be pushback from UEFA if that were to happen.