The Bosman ruling made shockwaves when it changed football 25 years ago this week. The relatively unknown player Jean-Marc Bosman went to court to forge a new path for players around Europe.

Running down contracts, going ‘on a Bosman’, signing pre-contract deals in the preceding January, Jean-Marc Bosman gave footballers the ‘player power’ they had always craved and irreversibly changed the path of the most popular sport on Earth.

Since that day, player power has only increased, and many players have gone on a ‘free’ by using the Bosman ruling ever since. We look at the careers of seven of the biggest game-changers. 

1. Gianluca Vialli – Juventus to Chelsea (1996)