The Bosman Ruling, explain

[billyho96]

I know that the rule allows a player to transfer to another club when his contract is up, without the club having to pay a fee.

It seems very similar to the Curt Flood story in MLB, which did away with the reserve clause and created modern free agency.

The unusally part (to me) is a player being able to pre-contract with another club during the final year of his contract. This would seem to be would they call tampering in American Sport.

Insight please?

[Boro_lad]

when a player has only 6 months left on his contract he is then allowed to recieve offers of contracts, the club he is at, at the time is not allowed to reject any bids, before this it is illegal to talk to the player without the clubs permission, (however total wankers ala alex fergison dont live by this rules and tap players up all the time.) Its not a bad thing because the club has a all the time in the world to offer the player a new contract, and if they dont agree then its only fair the player is allowed to talk to other teams about his future.

[revelation]

This is based on IIRC the 1995 case before the European Court brought by a minor Belgian player, Jean-Marc Bosman. Before this case, players were not allowed to leave a club even without a contract unless the hiring club paid a transfer fee. Thus clubs could keep a player in limbo after their contract ran out because they couldn't just move to another club. The Bosman ruling basically instilled free agency after a contract expired.

[harttbeat]

Go play CM. It explains it and u'll experience it.