A Social dialogue committee for European professional football was established in 2008 and concluded its first agreement in 2012—the Autonomous Agreement on minimum requirements for standard player contracts in the EU and UEFA territory. The Autonomous Agreement is significant as it stands as the first formal European wide agreement between organised employer and employee interests in European professional sports in general and football in particular. This paper explores the origins and significance of the Autonomous Agreement and it argues that the scope of the agreement can be widened
considerably to include some key contentious issues facing European football such as the reformation of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. However, drawing on research from Croatia and Serbia, the paper also highlights many problems connected to labour relations in professional football including: a lack of organised employer associations, weak trade unions, nonindependent national football federations’ arbitration problems connected with employment status efinition and poor employment practices. Since the transitional period of

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