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In professional association football, a free transfer , also known as a Bosman transfer, involves a professional association football club releasing a player when the player's contract has expired or made available just before the end of the contract. The player can then sign for any club offering them a contract. [1]
The club acquiring the player does not have to pay any compensation for their release due to having nothing left to pay on their contract, hence, the term free transfer. Some individual leagues have restrictions to protect academies. For example, in the UK, players under 24 who are out of contract are only available on a free transfer if released by the club holding the players' licence.
Another type of free transfer is when a player is transferred from one club to another for no price, sometimes a transfer for a nominal fee is credited as a free transfer.
With six months or less remaining on an existing contract for players aged 23 or older, they are free to negotiate with other clubs and sign a pre-contract agreement, indicating their ability to move to their intended club on a Bosman transfer when the next transfer window opens.
Free transfers are common in all strata of football. From leagues where money is less commonly available for clubs to spend on transfer fees, and also for players to leave wealthy clubs on a free transfer if the club cannot offer first team football, especially when departing for clubs in lower leagues.
Often, a player will opt to 'run down' their contract with one club so that they may join another free subsequently. This makes them a more attractive proposition for the club the player seeks to join, and the lack of a transfer fee being paid by the receiving club is often reflected in a more lucrative salary for the player than had they been purchased[ citation needed ]. A good example of this would be Sol Campbell's move from Tottenham Hotspur to north-London rivals Arsenal.
Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman (1995) C-415/93 is a 1995 European Court of Justice decision concerning freedom of movement for workers, freedom of association, and direct effect of article 39 of the Treaty of Rome.
In professional sports, a free agent is a player or manager who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations or teams can command large incomes. As a result, more sportspeople can afford to make sport their primary career, devoting the training time necessary to increase skills, physical condition, and experience to modern levels of achievement. This proficiency has also helped boost the popularity of sports. In most sports played professionally there are many more amateur than professional players, though amateurs and professionals do not usually compete.
Amateur sports are sports in which participants engage largely or entirely without remuneration. The distinction is made between amateur sporting participants and professional sporting participants, who are paid for the time they spend competing and training. In the majority of sports which feature professional players, the professionals will participate at a higher standard of play than amateur competitors, as they can train full-time without the stress of having another job. The majority of worldwide sporting participants are amateurs.
The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated that the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration. Players under these contracts were not free to enter into another contract with another team. Once signed to a contract, players could, at the team's discretion, be reassigned, traded, sold, or released.
Jean-Marc Bosman is a Belgian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder. His judicial challenge of the football transfer rules led to the Bosman ruling in 1995.
Major League Baseball transactions are changes made to the roster of a major league team during or after the season. They may include waiving, releasing, and trading players, as well as assigning players to minor league teams.
A transfer window is the period during the year in which a football club can add players to their squad who were previously under contract with another club. Such a transfer is completed by registering the player into the new club through FIFA. "Transfer window" is the unofficial term commonly used by the media for the concept of "registration period" as described in the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. According to the rules, each national football association decides on the time of the 'window' but it may not exceed 12 weeks. The second registration period occurs during the season and may not exceed four weeks.
In professional football, a transfer is the action taken whenever a player under contract moves between clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration from one association football club to another. In general, the players can only be transferred during a transfer window and according to the rules set by a governing body. A negotiated transfer fee is agreed financial compensation paid from an interested club to the club that possesses the player's exclusive contracted playing rights. When a player moves from one club to another, their old contract is terminated whilst the player and their new destination club will both negotiate on new contract terms. As such, the transfer fee functions as financial compensation for the early mutually agreed termination of the contract of a professional football player. Transfer fees are contingent on the player’s current football abilities, future potential, duration of the existing contract, amount of future salary owed and the willingness of clubs to agree on an economic equilibrium through supply and demand.
The NBA salary cap is the limit to the total amount of money that National Basketball Association teams are allowed to pay their players. Like the other major professional sports leagues in North America, the NBA has a salary cap to control costs and benefit parity, defined by the league's collective bargaining agreement (CBA). This limit is subject to a complex system of rules and exceptions and is calculated as a percentage of the league's revenue from the previous season. Under the CBA ratified in July 2017, the cap will continue to vary in future seasons based on league revenues. For the 2023–24 season, the cap is set at $136.021 million.
The transfer market is the arena in which football players are available for transfer to clubs.
The posting system is a baseball player transfer system that operates between Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and Major League Baseball (MLB). Despite the drafting of the United States – Japanese Player Contract Agreement, unveiled in 1967 to regulate NPB players moving to MLB, problems began to arise in the late 1990s. Some NPB teams lost star players without compensation, an issue highlighted when NPB stars Hideo Nomo and Alfonso Soriano left to play in MLB after using loopholes to void their existing contracts. A further problem was that NPB players had very little negotiating power if their teams decided to deal them to MLB, as when pitcher Hideki Irabu was traded to an MLB team for which he had no desire to play. In 1998, the Agreement was rewritten to address both problems; the result was dubbed the "posting system".
A restricted free agent (RFA) is a type of free agent in the National Football League (NFL), National Hockey League (NHL), or National Basketball Association (NBA). Such players have special restrictions on the terms under which they can retain or change employment status with their athletic club teams.
The Association Footballers' Union, formed in England in 1898, was the first attempt by football players in the United Kingdom to organize themselves into a union.
In North American professional sports, an offer sheet is a contract offered to a restricted free agent by a team other than the one for which he played during the prior season. Different leagues have different ways to handle offer sheets.
The Pelé law is a Brazilian law that forces professional sports clubs to observe business law and pay tax within two years.
The Webster ruling is a test case in association football law involving Andy Webster, a defender formerly with Heart of Midlothian football club in Edinburgh, Scotland. In September 2006 he became the first player to exploit the updated transfer regulations of FIFA, football's governing body, which stipulated that players are able to unilaterally walk away from a contract after a fixed period, regardless of the duration of the contract itself. Although the long-term effects of the decision remain unclear, it has been compared to the landmark Bosman ruling of 1995 in its potential significance.
In professional sports within the United States and Canada, a trade is a sports league transaction between sports clubs involving the exchange of player rights from one team to another. Though player rights are the primary trading assets, draft picks and cash are other assets that may be supplemented to consummate a trade, either packaged alongside player rights to be transferred to another team, or as standalone assets in exchange for player rights and/or draft picks in return. Typically, trades are completed between two clubs, but there are instances where trades are consummated between three or more clubs.
The NHL salary cap is the total amount of money that National Hockey League (NHL) teams are allowed to pay their players. It is a "hard" salary cap, meaning there are no exemptions. It was first introduced in the 2005–06 season.
The retain and transfer system was a restriction that existed in England from 1893 until 1963 on the freedom of professional association football players to transfer from one Football League club to another. The system remained in place until the High Court ruled in 1963 that it was an unjustifiable restraint of trade.
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