(Credit: Getty Images)

Ben Palmer

Sat 16 August 2025 21:30, UK

FIFA are facing a class action lawsuit that could have a similar effect on the transfer market to Neymar’s transfer to PSG in 2017.

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That is according to football finance expert Dan Plumley, who told Football Insider exclusively that impactful moments often have a more significant effect on the “middle to lower end of the market”.

The class action stems from former Chelsea, Arsenal, and Portsmouth midfielder Lassana Diarra, who was ordered to pay his former side Lokomotiv Moscow €10million (£8.7m) [The Times] after cancelling his contract one year into a four-year deal.

(Credit Hasan Karin, Breaking Media)

The Frenchman took his case to the European Court of Justice (CJEU), with the court then ruling that FIFA’s restrictions on player movements violated the EU’s free movement and competition laws.

Justice For Players is now leading the class action against the football governing body, seeking compensation worth billions of pounds.

Plumley told Football Insider previously that the case against FIFA was comparable to the Bosman ruling in 1995, which gave birth to the free transfers that have allowed Trent Alexander-Arnold to join Real Madrid, before it was brought forward, and Kevin De Bruyne to join Napoli this summer.

This article contains exclusive comment from Dan Plumley, a football finance expert and senior lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University.

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Speaking to Football Insider exclusively, Plumley explained that if the class action does reach a stage where transfer laws are altered, the biggest impacts may be felt slightly lower down the pecking order.

The focus right now will largely be on how it could affect the likes of Liverpool target Alexander Isak, but the finance expert pointed towards Neymar’s record-breaking transfer to PSG.

Alexander Isak is a target for Liverpool.

It could be hugely significant in terms of how the transfer market operates.

Kevin De Bruyne departed Man City this summer.

(Credit: Imago)

“We always focus on the top end of the market.

But we saw this with the Neymar deal and the release clause, and what it did was inflate the middle value of the market.

“You had players that were [worth] £20m moving for £70m.

“There’s often more kind of impact in that middle to lower end of the market.

But we just tend to focus right at the very top.”

The effects of the class action are purely hypothetical at this moment in time, so the world governing body’s attention will be focused on transfers that have happened this summer.

And two moves that will have caught their eye are Mathis Amougou and Ishe Samuels-Smith‘s moves to Strasbourg.

Plumley told Football Insider that FIFA will keep an eye on Chelsea’s business with the French side.

Mathis Amougou departed Chelsea for Strasbourg this summer.
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