Football contracts is a specific area of Sports law

Sports law

Sports law is an umbrella term used to describe the legal issues at work in the world of both amateur and professional sports. Sports law overlaps substantially with labor law, contract law, competition or antitrust law, and tort law. Issues like defamation and privacy rights are also an integral...

 which is used to describe the legal contractual issues at work in the world of both amateur and professional football. The area of Football contracts overlaps substantially with labor law, contract law and tort law. Issues like defamation, privacy rights

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

 and intellectual property law are also an integral aspect of football contracts. This area been subject to a number of controversies since the 1990s (see the Bosman ruling

Bosman ruling

Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Football Association ASBL v Jean-Marc Bosman 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 EC Treaty...

 and the Webster ruling

Webster ruling

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...

). These cases have coincided with the rebalancing of player power and increased media scrutiny and commercialisation of football.

See also

• Eastham v. Newcastle United, a similar 1963 court case in England.
• Seitz decision
  Seitz decision
  The Seitz decision was a ruling by arbitrator Peter Seitz on December 23, 1975 which declared that Major League Baseball players became free agents upon playing one year for their team without a contract, effectively nullifying baseball's reserve clause...
  
  , a similar 1975 arbitration
  Arbitration
  Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, where the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons , by whose decision they agree to be bound...
  
   case in the United States.
• Kolpak ruling, which extended Bosman to countries with an associate trading relationship with the EU, most notably the ACP countries
  ACP countries
  The African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States is a group of countries , created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. The group's main objectives are sustainable development and poverty reduction within its member states, as well as their greater integration into the world's economy...