Football Transfers Were Not, as It Turns out, About to Change Forever

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has handed down an important ruling [pdf] that clarifies its earlier decision in the Webster case and makes my earlier interpretation of that case look really, really exaggerated. (See: “Football Transfers Are About to Change Forever,” from January 2008.) The new ruling, which settles a dispute between Shakhtar Donetsk and their former midfielder Matuzalém, essentially says that players who change clubs unilaterally under FIFA’s Article 17 will have their transfer fees judged on an individual basis rather than by simply adding up the amount remaining on their contracts, as the CAS allowed Andy Webster to do. This will have a lot of consequences, but the biggest is that players won’t have the easy route out of their contracts that we all thought they would a year ago. For anyone who wants to read about this in more detail, Daryl at the Offside has the story.