Analysis of the “gentlemen’s agreement” related to the transfer of players in the mexican professional football first division.

ANALYSIS OF THE

“GENTLEMEN’S AGREEMENT”

RELATED TO THE TRANSFER OF PLAYERS IN THE MEXICAN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL FIRST DIVISION.

Tilburg University Netherlands. Tilburg, The Netherlands. May 4th , 2009.

Carlos Eduardo Villaseñor Moreno 197797 Student Number 197797

INTRODUCTION.
Jean-Marc Bosman, a name that changed the history, for sports, for the European Union, for the world.The Belgium that challenged the FIFA and its transfer rules and became an icon due to the European Court of Justice ruling on December 15, 1995.

After the Bosman rule, the FIFA had to change the regulations on the status and transfer of players, on which nowadays a player can move freely after his contract has ended to another team without the “permission” or payment of specific transfer fees;this is how it works in the entire world, but not in one country, Mexico.

After the player’s Draft (Régimen de Transferencias) on June 2003, the owners of all of the first professional football division reached an agreement, what they called a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (Pacto de caballeros), which basically consists in a way to restrict the transfer of the players to one team to another if hedoesn’t have the consent of the player’s former team, what is against the FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players.

Before analyzing the agreement per se, its implications and possible sanctions, I will give a broad explanation on the structure of the FIFA, the pre and after ECJ Bosman ruling transfer regulations, the organization of the Mexican Federation of Football Association(FEMEXFUT) and its previous and current transfer regulations. All of this in order to achieve a better understanding of the seriousness of the topic and its legal implications at FIFA level and in the national law level

STRUCTURE OF THE FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION (FIFA)
FIFA is a Swiss association that is composed by national associations called “members” (one for eachcountry with the exception of the United Kingdom1), each member has to file an application to the FIFA in order to become a member (the statues of the member are at the same time subject to FIFA approval), and then the Congress, which is composed by all the FIFA members, votes to grant or not the membership to the member. Once the member has been admitted, among other rights and obligations it isobliged to “comply fully with the statues, regulations, directives and decision of FIFA bodies at any time as well as the decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) passed on appeal on the basis of art 60 Par I of the FIFA Statues”. At the same time the members that belong to the same continent are part of a Confederation which are created among other duties to help FIFA in administrativematters such as organizing tournaments in the specific geographical region2. This is how broadly speaking FIFA and “organized football” is structured and regulated.
1 2

Article 10 of FIFA Statues. Available at www.fifa.com Article 20 of FIFA Statues. Available at www.fifa.com

PRE-BOSMAN REGULATIONS AND EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE RULING.
There is a lot of literature on the Bosman decision. Ido not intend in going in a detailed analysis of the case, which I consider is easy to obtain and check the backgrounds of the same.

Before December 15, 1995 date of which the ECJ ruled the Bosman case, the FIFA rules on the transfer of players stipulated that Clubs would get a fee for the transfer of a player every time they transferred him to another club. There was always a value attached tothe players. The club could not lose them for nothing when the contract had expired. However, this could lead to situations in which the price asked for a player would be higher than what the other clubs were ready to pay. The player would then suffer from this situation, having to accept the unilateral contractual offer of his club that usually included a sharp decrease in revenues or be...