The highest court of the European Union stated on Friday that some of the rules of the FIFA on transfers of footballers may conflict with European Union legislation on competition and free movement.
The failure occurs after the Former French international Lassana Diarra appealed to the courts against FIFA regulations after a dispute with a club dating back a decade.
Diarra had signed a four-year contract with the Lokomotiv Moscow in 2013. The agreement was terminated a year later when Diarra became dissatisfied with alleged salary cuts.
The club requested compensation from FIFA’s dispute resolution committee and the footballer filed a counterclaim claiming compensation for unpaid wages. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the Russian team terminated the contract with Diarra “for just cause” and ordered the athlete to pay €10.5 million ($11.2 million).
Diarra claimed that his search for a new club was hampered by FIFA rules, which stipulate that the new team would be responsible, along with him, for paying compensation to Lokomotiv.
“The rules in question may prevent the free movement of professional footballers who want to develop their activity in a new club,” the court said in a statement.
The former Real Madrid midfielder also alleged that a possible deal with Belgian side Charleroi was thwarted by FIFA rules, and sued world football’s governing body and the Belgian federation before a Belgian court for damages and loss. of six million euros (seven million dollars). With the lawsuit still ongoing in Belgian justice, the case was referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a ruling.
The so-called “Diarra case”, which has the support of the world footballers’ union FIFPro, went through the judicial bodies of FIFA before the election in 2016 of the new president of the entity, Gianni Infantino, who has made the modernization of transfer market rules a priority.
