The European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL) believes the recent Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decision in the case of Wigan Athletic defender Andy Webster was against the spirit of the game.

CAS ruled in favour of lowering the costs awarded against Webster for breaching his contract with former club Hearts after he walked out in May 2006 with one year of his deal remaining.

The Lausanne-based court ordered Webster and Wigan to pay Hearts a reduced fine of £150,000, equivalent to Webster's annual salary, after FIFA's own Dispute Resolution Chamber had initially imposed a sanction of £625,000.

"Certainly the decision taken by CAS in the Webster case, I believe was not in strict correspondence with the spirit of the rules," EPFL chief executive Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros said on Tuesday at the launch of its social and economic forum.

"I'm very concerned with the wider implications of it and if everything is narrowed to the residual value of the contract it could create instability that would affect football as a whole.

"This urgently needs to be addressed. We have a number of ideas, projects and initiatives that we want to implement but naturally this will be done in due course.

"We are the common voice of the European Leagues and we must provide common orientation and solutions so they can protect their own interests."

Webster, who was out of the first team at Hearts, became the first player to invoke Article 17 of FIFA's transfer regulations to cancel his contract before joining Wigan for nothing.

FIFA argued that CAS had failed to properly interpret Article 17 and that the decision could mean small clubs facing "even more aggressive approaches towards their players".

In another case likely to end up in a CAS hearing, Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary is currently training with Swiss team FC Sion who have offered his club Al-Ahly the equivalent of the last two years of his salary.

The EPFL, formed two years ago, represents 19 leagues and around 800 clubs throughout Europe.