<P> Players who are not drafted in a league's annual draft of amateur players are considered to be unrestricted free agents and are free to sign contracts with any team . In most North American professional sports, players are drafted by sequencing each team from worst to best (according to the teams' immediately preceding season record, sometimes invoking a draft lottery factor to avoid having teams intentionally lose their last games to gain higher draft position) and allowing said teams to claim rights to the top players entering the league that year . Players that pass through an entire draft (usually several rounds) without being selected by any of the league's teams become unrestricted free agents, and these players are sometimes identified simply as an undrafted free agent (UDFA) or undrafted sportsperson and are free to sign with any team they choose . The term "undrafted free agent" is most common in the National Football League, where rookies enter directly into the NFL and do not play in a minor league system . It can also occasionally be seen in the National Hockey League, which increasingly uses college hockey as a source; the NHL Entry Draft usually drafts players during high school age (i.e., junior leagues), which allows overlooked players who excel at the college level to bypass the draft and sign directly with the NHL . </P> <P> In the European Union, the 1995 Bosman ruling by the European Court of Justice established the right of free agency for association football players in all EU member nations . The Bosman ruling has since been extended to cover other professional sports and players from Eastern Europe . Players were still tied to their clubs unless their contract ran out until the Webster ruling allowed players the opportunity to move between nations, though it does not allow free players to move within the national league in which they currently play . </P> <P> In professional association football, a free agent is either a player that has been released by a professional association football club and now is no longer affiliated with any club, or a player whose contract with his or her current club has expired and is thus free to join any other club under the terms of the Bosman ruling . </P> <P> Free agents do not have to be signed during the normal transfer window that is implemented in some countries' leagues . If they are signed by a team, the team signing them does not have to pay any fees--sometimes this is known as "a free transfer". </P>

Who was the first free agent in sports