The effects of the Bosman-case on the professional football leagues with special regard to the top-five leagues

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 1,0, University of Twente (Political Institute ), 110 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: How did the Bosman-case affect the European football leagues, and especially the top-five leagues (England, Italy, Spain, Germany and France)? In order to answer this question many different dimension have to be taken into consideration, since the Bosman case revolutionized football in more than one way. Thus aspects, which have to be mentioned here, include the changed number of foreign football players in the European leagues, the new transfer system, the new competitiveness situation as well as the financial development of the clubs. What is the historical relation between the EU law and sport law? What exactly is the content of the Bosman case? Which additional sport cases where decided by the ECJ after the Bosman ruling? How did the clubs react to the changed rules? Where the players able to benefit from the Bosman ruling, and if so how exactly? Has the competitive balance situation changed after Bosman? Are there also other reasons that can explain a changed situation? In the first part the question about the exact relation between the EU and the sport law will be answered. In the third section, questions concerning the content of the ruling will be answered. Therefore, the judgement itself will be under investigation, and additional reasons for the ruling will be identified. After this other cases that served as a follow-up for Bosman will be described, as for example the Lehtonen Case or the Kolpak case. The first and immediate consequences of the judgement will be discussed in section five. First, the implementation itself and whether or not clubs acted according to the rule will be described. Some leagues made up new rules, and handled them as gentlemen agreements. The question will be if this is in line with the Bosman ruling, or if the rules are illegal. Section six deals with the changed relationship between players and clubs. In section seven other possible affects of the Bosman case will be researched. The leading question for this part is if the competitive situation after Bosman is different. This will be analysed for the European as well as for the national competition. In section eight the new competitive situation will be further discussed, and other reasons than Bosman which also could have lead to the new situation will be described. Section nine will summarize the main findings of this paper.