FifPro taking on FIFA and UEFA over transfer system (contracts/loans/agents)

[You Goater be kidding]

Article on the Guardian about it: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/sep/18/fifpro-transfer-fees-could-go-fifa-brussels

An excerpt:

Fifpro wants to abolish transfer fees and make it easier for players to move between clubs while respecting contracts. It believes its members have less freedom of movement than other workers when a club is able to demand a fee for a footballer under contract. Its lawyers also plan to argue that the existing system is anti-competitive because it places disproportionate power in the hands of elite clubs who can afford to pay large transfer fees.

Other Fifpro objectives include an end to the loan system, restrictions on squad sizes and the capping of payments to agents.

From reading the article it appears that this is not a direct challenge but instead an attempt to change court mandates from a previous ruling, on the grounds that FIFA and Uefa failed to comply. I am not a lawyer though so it may be that I am wrong.

Gabriele Marcotti has weighed in with a decent explainer on this: http://www.espnfc.us/blog/marcotti-...xplaining-fifpro-legal-complaint-against-fifa

And the re-allocation of resources? The trickledown effect? Surely FIFPro are wrong about that too?

Not necessarily. They point out that while some portion of the transfer fees does trickle down to lower divisions and smaller clubs, it's a small proportion of the total. And the vast majority of transfer spending is simply big clubs trading with one another. But I actually think this point is somewhat irrelevant...

How so?

Well, it may have been one of the stated goals of the Commission but if you want to redistribute resources, there are much better ways to do it than tweaking transfer regulations. You can distribute TV money differently or make clubs share box office revenues. That would have much more of a direct effect.