So, is this man football’s biggest bastard or a revolutionary? Whichever history judges him as, he will be remembered and every single club and player in the game has been affected by his actions. This midfielder won 20 caps for Belgium at youth level in the mid eighties but wasn’t able to hold down a regular place with his first club, Standard Liege, before joining their city neighbours in 1987.
In the summer of 1990, aged 26, he came to the end of his contract with FC Liege who, in offering him a new deal worth only 60 per cent of the previous one, were about to bugger up the sport we know and love forever. He agreed terms on a move to Dunkerque of the French second division but they couldn’t meet Liege’s fee. Two months later, this cheeky chappy sued his club and the Belgian FA.
In November, 1990, a Belgian court declared that he should be free to move to France. By the time that the Belgian FA’s appeal against this ruling was dismissed in May, 1991, Dunkerque had changed their minds about signing him and no club would take him in Belgium, where he was even refused unemployment benefit. Legal disputes rolled on for another four years during which he played briefly in the French lower leagues and on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean. In December, 1995, this young man was awarded $1 million in damages at an EU tribunal, which established that players should be allowed to move for free at the end of their contracts. Football is all the worse for it.
.JPG "Jean-Marc Bosman")
He currently has a T-shirt collection, ‘for cool guys who also care about their look’, apparently. Hopefully the designs aren’t based on the shirt he was wearing for the Panini Belgian League 1989 edition, as seen above. If it isn’t too bloody obvious anyway, click here to reveal the hidden identity of this bounder.
