By Andrew Warshaw
October 31 – The lawyer who helped change the face of world football has been drafted in by Swiss club FC Sion to try to win their case against UEFA and FIFA.
In the 1990s, Belgian Jean-Louis Dupont (pictured) represented journeyman footballer Jean-Marc Bosman, who took on and beat the established authorities and whose name became synonymous with end-of-contract free transfers.
The long-running Sion case against FIFA and UEFA over their exclusion from the Europa League has been dubbed the new Bosman and is due to be resolved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Nov 24.
Sion were kicked out of the competition after violating a transfer ban involving six new players but are fighting to be reinstated having won a number of civil court rulings.
In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, Dupont said: “I have been asked to join the existing team to analyse the dossier in terms of the European angle.
“The Vaud tribunal considered Sion’ exclusion as an abuse of power.”
Dupont’s involvement will be noted with concern by UEFA’s own lawyers and those of FIFA whose statutes say no footballing disputes should be settled by civil courts.
Dupont begs to differ.
“The Bosman case settled once and for all the question of whether federations could be considered completely autonomous outside communal law,” he said.
“The answer is no.”
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