New issues in the labour relationships in professional football: social dialogue, implementation of the first autonomous agreement in Croatia and Serbia and the new sports labour law cases

Abstract

A Social dialogue committee for European professional football was established in 2008 and concluded its first agreement in 2012—the Autonomous Agreement on minimum requirements for standard player contracts in the EU and UEFA territory. The Autonomous Agreement is significant as it stands as the first formal European wide agreement between organised employer and employee interests in European professional sports in general and football in particular. This paper explores the origins and significance of the Autonomous Agreement and it argues that the scope of the agreement can be widened considerably to include some key contentious issues facing European football such as the reformation of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. However, drawing on research from Croatia and Serbia, the paper also highlights many problems connected to labour relations in professional football including: a lack of organised employer associations, weak trade unions, non-independent national football federations’ arbitration, problems connected with employment status definition and poor employment practices. Since the transitional period of 2 and 3 years from the date of the entry into force of the Autonomous Agreement is coming to the end, in the paper the author presents what has been achieved and highlights some core problems with the Autonomous Agreement’s implementation, especially in the eastern EU member countries and UEFA members. The importance of social dialogue in the professional football sector is even more important with the new national case law decisions in Belgium (Dahmane) and Germany (Muller) which demonstrate that sport should be given a more specific framework to be in line with the EU law, and social partners are key actors.