The end of transfer fees in Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Supreme Court Decision precludes the BVF to collect ITC (transfer) fee on the basis of its Regulations. The BVF Regulations, based on the FIVB rules, are pronounced illegal by the Supreme Court.

Administrative fees can be collected on the basis of Art. 60.1 of the BG Constitution, which says that the collected fee must correspond to the people’s income and property. Such fees cannot go beyond the reasonble bounderies, e.g. Eur 10, 20… but not EUR 1 500 or 10 000 (for free players). It is also implied by the "Bosman" Decision of the ECJ, par. 1 of the operative part of the decision (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:61993J0415:EN:HTML).

The BG Supreme Court decision is not applicable to the other EU member states due to the grounds on which it was rendered. According to the Bulgarian Sports Law Act, all sports federations’ regulations must be approved by the Sports Ministry in order to be valid and binding. It was proved that the BVF Regulations were not approved by the Sports Ministry and that is why they were revoked. In any case, the new 2009 FIVB Sports Regulations already revoked the entire Chapter "Transfer Fee to the Federation of Origin" set out in the previous edition 2006 of the FIVB Sports Regulations. So, even under the new FIVB rules, in force since March 2009, the BVF and all other National Federations have no right to collect any fees for the issuance of the ITC. It is only the FIVB that will continue to collect such fees (cf. Art. 1.6.2.1 of the 2009 FIVB rules).

We will bring you an interview with Mr. Gradev, who won this case versus Bulgarian Volleyball Federation on October 12.

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