The times they are a changing....

With the FIFA embargo on Chelsea transfers in place, President Blatter calling for further controls on predatory football clubs, Platini at UEFA seeking to regulate the signing of under-age players, and the European Union on the verge of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty (in which sport plays a very important part), how close are we to a fundamental change in the way that young players (indeed players of all ages) are recruited by sports teams? Will the current regulation of player recruitment and acquisition, often in direct contravention of European Union law, be changed in a way that is more significant than 1995's Bosman Ruling? In five years time, will we therefore have a completely different model in place to the one that we have currently? If so, what will it look like? And how will others in the transfer system e.g. agents and intermediaries be affected? Indeed, with the Lisbon Treaty looming on the horizon and the EU about to publish a report it commissioned on sports agents last year about to be published, will we actually see controls, possibly even legislation, being introduced to regulate the activities of agents?