The Lassana Diarra Case Explained
Most modern Premier League fans will know the name Lassana Diarra. The retired French international gained 34 caps for his country and played for several high-profile clubs including Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, and Marseille. He also operated in the English top tier between 2005 and 2009 for Chelsea, Arsenal, and Portsmouth, winning three major trophies before enjoying successful stints in Spain and Italy.
While Diarra was an impressive player who combined aggression and a high work rate with excellent technical ability and positional awareness, it's very possible that his post-retirement activities will have far more of an impact on the global game than his playing days did.
That's because since hanging up his boots Diarra has been embroiled in a huge legal case that could have massive ramifications both on and off the pitch. You may have heard of the Lassana Diarra vs FIFA case already, but if not, you've come to the right place. In this article we're going to explain the recent ruling sparked by Diarra's legal campaign against FIFA and dive into what the repercussions are likely to be.
Why Did Lassana Diarra Pursue Legal Action Against FIFA?
Lassana Diarra joined Real Madrid in 2009 and was a regular starter during his early seasons at the club, until stiff midfield competition from the likes of Sami Khedira and Mezut Ozil eventually left him out of favour. He made the surprising decision to join Russian outfit Anzhi Makhachkala in 2012, but a relatively unsuccessful season at the former financial heavyweights led to him joining fellow Russian Premier League side Lokomotiv Moscow the following summer.
Diarra made a strong start to life at Lokomotiv Moscow, but the 2013/14 campaign would be his only season at the Russian club. Early in 2015, he'd slipped out of the first team and Lokomotiv argued that his salary should be reduced, a decision he (understandably) did not accept. The relationship soured to such an extent that Diarra missed multiple training sessions and Lokomotiv ultimately terminated his contract in August 2014 (when there were still three years left on it) and sued him for breach of contract.
The previous summer Lokomotiv had paid €20m for Diarra, which led to the club seeking financial compensation from the midfielder worth the same amount. Diarra was ordered to pay up after the matter reached FIFA's dispute resolution chamber and later the Court of Arbitration for Sport, both of which sided with Lokomotiv. He was ordered to pay a €10m fine to the club and forced to serve a 15-month ban from playing professional football.
Several clubs had been interested in landing Diarra's signature after the Russian outfit terminated his contract. The Belgian side Royal Charleroi came close to signing the Frenchman, but they were seeking a guarantee from FIFA and the Belgian FA that they would not be forced to pay the compensation Lokomotiv were due. This guarantee wasn't given, and Charleroi subsequently ended their interest in Diarra. The player, his legal team, his union, and FIFPRO, all believed this was a breach of European labour law.
The European Court of Justice Ruling Explained
After Charleroi bailed on the prospective transfer, Diarra launched successful legal action against FIFA and the Belgian FA, with the local commercial court in Belgium then ruling in his favour and directing the two organisations to compensate the player. The case was then passed to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) because of its relation to two key tenets of EU law: the right to freedom of movement for individuals and the preservation of competition within internal markets.
It took many years for this case to get through the courts, but towards the end of last year, the CJEU finally came to a landmark ruling. Before the verdict was given, the organisation's advocate general Maciej Szpunar said that "the consequence of a player terminating a contract without just cause are so draconian that it is highly unlikely that a player will go down this route," advising a change in FIFA's regulations.
And he was vindicated; in October 2024, after years of campaigning, the European Court of Justice ruled that key FIFA rules governing the transfer system are "contrary to EU law", heaping pressure on football's governing body to change their regulations.
According to The Guardian, going into the case the key questions were: "did FIFA, as football's governing authority, act against Diarra's rights to freedom of movement when he was denied authorisation to join Charleroi? Does the obligation placed on a buying club to cover costs of a player's departure from their previous club affect their ability to trade? And do FIFA's transfer rules achieve such outcomes by their very design?" According to the ruling, the answer is yes to every single one of those questions.
What do legal experts say?
Speaking to us in a recent Career Q&A, FIFPRO Senior Legal Counsel Alexandra Gomez-Bruinewoud explained: "This is a very important case that [FIFPRO] has been advocating for for many years… it's not possible for a player to calculate and foresee what the consequence will be if he or she decides to terminate the contract without just cause. And when we talk about termination without just cause sometimes there's this perspective that you shouldn't terminate the contract, but sometimes life happens, and sometimes there are things that are more important than your job.
Your mother or father could get sick, and you wanna take care of them, and you ask for authorisation from the club and the club says no, and you say 'Okay, I'll leave, I just wanna look after my parents' - that's one example, there are a million things that could happen."
She continued: "It's not correct that if a club terminates a contract without just cause and has to pay compensation, they know exactly the maximum that they will have to pay and they will probably have to pay less than that maximum, they can work out whether it's a good business decision.
But for the player, it's very difficult to calculate how much you would have to pay; it can go from the rest value of your contract (so what the club would've paid to you as salaries for the rest of your contract) to an amount that is much bigger which takes into account the transfer fee when they hired you, the replacement costs… [this decision] criticises exactly that part and says 'It cannot be that there is an employee that has no clue if they would be able to financially terminate a contract or not because they cannot calculate it."
Gomez-Bruinewoud's comments reinforce FIFPRO's statement that the ruling "states central parts of FIFA's player transfer rules are incompatible with European Union law." According to FIFPRO, the European Court of Justice has "emphasised that these regulations must comply with EU rules on competition and freedom of movement principles."
They argue that the clauses in Article 17 of the FIFA regulations (the key article in question during this case) have discouraged numerous players from terminating their contract unilaterally and pursuing new employment, and that this cannot be justified." Described as an "abusive system", the very foundations of the current transfer market system have been questioned.
"Thanks to [the ECJ] judgement FIFA will be forced to amend this practice, and it must be clear that any such change can only be done through agreement with the social partners, including player unions and their members," added FIFPRO. "Lassana Diarra — like Jean-Marc Bosman before him — has ensured that thousands of players worldwide will profit from a new system which must guarantee respect of their employment rights."
The Impact of the Ruling
Before the ECJ's ruling there had been plenty of speculation about the ramifications of a ruling in Diarra's favour, with many predicting that this would fundamentally shift the bargaining power in transfer and contract negotiations towards players and their agents, and away from clubs. While the long-term consequences of the decision are yet to be felt, this certainly looks likely.
Just weeks after the verdict swung Diarra's way, FIFA adapted its transfer regulations on an interim basis in response, changing things in time for the January 2025 transfer window. FIFA stated at this point that they believed they'd moved in line with the ECJ's recommendations, but also accepted the fact that they could be challenged immediately or an injunction sought to delay the adaptation of the rules.
FIFPRO contend that the global players' union was not properly consulted before the interim rules were drafted, and say the temporary measures have been introduced "without a proper collective bargaining process".
The impact of the decision goes beyond these interim regulation changes. Belgian sports law experts Robby Houben, Oliver Budzinski and Melchoir Wathelet have predicted that "the likely practical outcome of Diarra will be that the transfer system in football, as we know it, will fall," with more power given to players in line with an increased focus on the kind of employment laws and personal rights that are taken for granted in other walks of life but often undervalued in professional football.
The Diarra case could potentially have an impact on multi-club ownership groups; clubs within these groups rely on being able to trade with each other and structure the career paths of their players in a very specific way, but this ruling could change that, giving clubs less power to do so. Big European clubs like Manchester City and RB Leipzig would be impacted by this, but at the same time their ability to lure players away from feeder clubs, who rely on being able to tie players down and make profits when selling them, would also be heightened.
Ultimately, the effects of the Diarra verdict are still unclear, and with the case now being heard by the Belgian appeal court, a clear end is still some way off. But the ruling is a sizeable one, regardless, and it's likely to have a long-term impact on how football clubs, players and agents interact with each other in the European transfer market.
If you'd like to find out about another hugely important legal ruling that changed the landscape of professional football forever, check out our in-depth guide to the Bosman Ruling, a 1995 ruling which saw Diarra's current lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont help Jean-Marc Bosman achieve international fame in the wake of another contentious transfer saga.
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Q&A: Alexandra Gomez Bruinewoud, FIFPRO Legal Director
