Professional Football Players' Contracts Under Turkish Law

Year 2008, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 19 - 29, 01.01.2008

Anıl Gürsoy

Abstract

Aprofessional sportsman is a person who is specialized in a branch of sports and performs in exchange of a fee in competitions as a profession. 1 “Professional player “ is a term that has been defined as “a Professional is a player who has a written contract with a club and is paid more than the expenses he effectively incurs in return for his2 footballing activity” at Article 2 of the FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Federation) Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players. The criteria for being a professional player have been set by the DRC (FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber) and CAS3 (Court of Arbitration for Sports) in several cases. While deciding on a player’s status, the player’s profession, age, and ratio between his costs and remuneration play an important role. A contract has been defined by the Turkish Code of Obligations4 Article 1 as “Contract to be concluded, a manifestation of parties’ mutual consent required.” Reduced to simple terms, a contract is an agreement between two or more parties that imposes some kind of obligation or responsibility on each. 5 The most simple and appropriate definition of a professional player contract would be: “A contract which is concluded between a registered club as professional and a player whose intent is to serve his footballing activity under that Club for a period of time and fee.” As it can clearly be seen from the definition, amateur Clubs and players cannot be party to this agreement.