Cross-industry and sectoral social dialogue - Professional football

Social partners

Employees' organisations	Employers' organisations
International Organisation of Professional Football Players' Associations (FIFPro)	European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL)
	European Club Association (ECA)

Taking into account the governance of the sector, UEFA was invited to chair the meetings.

The social dialogue committee for this sector was created in 2008.

Social dialogue in this sector covers:

employment in the professional football sector.

In 2005, it was estimated that there were more than 34,000 professional football players and more than 1,700 professional football clubs in the EU. Cross-border mobility and staff turnover are particularly high in this sector.

The sector is characterised by extreme differences both amongst clubs and amongst players. These differences have increased in the last years. Whereas the image of the sector is characterised by those players which earn high salaries and clubs which avail of large budgets, non-negligible part of professional football takes place under less favourable conditions. In certain countries, there is still a high prevalence of overdue payables, despite recent regulatory interventions through e.g. domestic and European club licensing and Financial Fair Play regulations. Moreover, in certain countries the recourse to legal remedies is not as effective as required, whereas in some EU member states the use of self-employment or civil law contracts is still widespread.

Focus areas

The committee is currently focusing on:

implementation of the minimum requirements for standard player contracts in the European Union and in the rest of the UEFA territory (Implementation of existing agreement and further development). This includes also work on National dispute resolution chambers and on strengthening social dialogue structures in the concerned countries,
analysis of the sectoral labour relations and their development in recent past and expected trends.