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The legal challenge planned by Ashley Cole's lawyers could change the rules relating to the 'tapping up' of players. No other industry forbids employees talking to potential new employers and the FA Premier League's independent commission accepted that the rules amount to a restraint of trade. However, they argue that supporters would lose faith in the competition if they knew that players were speaking to other clubs and therefore not fully committed to their own side, although most supporters probably already realise that players are hired hands who want to further their own careers. However, the commission argued that if the regulations were loosened, agents would be the only beneficiaries.
Arguably the rules break both European competition law and the English common law principle of restraint of trade. It would probably be harder to argue a case on free movement of workers in the European Union, as happened in the Bosman case, because there was no international dimension. In any event Mr Cole would have to exhaust the league's appeal process before taking his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne. He could then go to the High Court or the European Court of Justice. Sports lawyers take the view that a court would have to consider not simply whether the rules were a restriction but whether football had special characteristics that made them justifiable and proportionate such as the need to maintain competitive teams or team spirit. The European Commission has acknowledged that footballers cannot be treated in the same way as non-sporting professions.
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