Football disgusts me now. I’m still hurting after 25 years... my kids are all I live for
SHOCKING PERSONAL COST OF LANDMARK TRANSFER RULING
IT doesn’t take long for the tears to flow when JeanMarc Bosman looks back on the court case that won footballers their freedom – and cost him his dreams.
At the age of 56, the former Belgium youth international is a shadow of the man who exposed the ugly side of the beautiful game during a bitter five-year legal battle.
It ended with football’s antiquated transfer system being dragged into the 20th century – and ushered in an era when players have never had it so good.
But for Bosman there was a price to pay. “I am still hurting,” he says from his home in Liege.
“I have given 25 years for this fight and I am still carrying the wounds.
“The only thing I have left in my life are my children. My two sons keep me going. They are the only thing that counts. I just want to live for my kids. That’s what matters now.
“Sometimes I can bring myself to watch football again, but I am disgusted by the game at the same time. Would I do it all again? Yes, I would. I have seen how it has changed the game, given freedom to players and seen the astronomical sums they have been earning.
“I am being as polite as I can when I say it has been 25 years of unhappiness in my life.
“But I still feel it was worth it – and I would do it all again.”
Bosman’s family home was so close to Standard Liege’s Stade Maurice Dufrasne ground that he could see the floodlights and hear the roars of the fans from his bedroom.
It was a dream come true when he signed for the club and became a gifted midfielder who won youth team honours for Belgium and captained his nation’s Under-21 side.
When Bosman moved to local rivals RFC Liege for £75,000 in 1988, it was considered a step up – but when his twoyear contract expired there was no offer of a new deal and French second division club Dunkerque offered him a fresh start. These were the days before freedom of contract. And when Dunkerque refused to pay a £ 300,000 transfer fee, RFC were able to retain Bosman’s registration and slash his wages by 75 per cent.
Lawyers advised him to seek an escape route through the courts. But a case that was supposed to take two weeks to win dragged on until 1995.
And although the European Court of Justice ruled in Bosman’s favour, his downfall had already begun.
As his marriage failed, Bosman sought solace in drink to ease his depression.
He hit rock bottom when he was sentenced to 12 months in prison following an assault on a girlfriend’s daughter.
And while a generation of players have never had it so good, the man whose name became synonymous with a free transfer has not worked for a decade and is forced to get by on benefits of around £ 1,500 a month.
Bosman said: “Ever ybody knows the name. Nobody knows the man.” A BT Sport documentary about Bosman’s fight against the system will be screened for the first time on Wednesday.
It’s a brilliant but tough watch. In it, Rio Ferdinand (below) describes the Belgian as a “sacrificial lamb”.
He isn’t wrong.
For Bosman, it was never about the money – although the reality of life on benefits means the memory of driving around town in a Porsche Carrera feels like a lifetime ago.
Bosman is a proud man. But his cry for help is unmistakable.
He said: “Eric Cantona got in touch and spoke about starting up a new players’ union, but it didn’t come to anything.
“Recently, Adrien Raboit, the Frenchman who plays for Juventus, contacted me and told me he appreciates what I did.
“But I haven’t had a job for 10 years. Football has the ability to give me an astronomical sum, but I don’t need that.
“I just need enough to get by and live a good life.”
Bosman – The Player Who Changed Football, the next documentary from the BT Sport Films series, will premiere on BT Sport 1 on Wednesday, December 9 at 10.15pm