Editor's Note: Ryan is Assistant
Professor at Thompson Rivers University, he defended his PhD at Erasmus
University Rotterdam in December 2015. His dissertation examined human rights
violations caused by international sporting events, and how international
sporting organisations may be held accountable for these violations.
“Serious sport…is
war minus the shooting.” – George Orwell
In May 2016, the
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) admitted the Football
Federation of Kosovo (Kosovo) as a member. The voting was
close, with 28 member federations in favour, 24 opposed, and 2 whose votes were
declared invalid. The practical outcome of this decision is that Kosovo would
be able participate in the UEFA Euro championship, and that Kosovo teams could
qualify for the UEFA Champions’ League or Europa League. More...
Editor’s Note: Shervine Nafissi (@SNafissi) is a Phd Student in sports law and teaching assistant in corporate law at University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC).
Introduction
The factual background
The dispute concerns a TPO contract entitled “Economic Rights Participation Agreement” (hereinafter “ERPA”) concluded in 2012 between Sporting Lisbon and the investment fund Doyen Sports. The Argentine player was transferred in 2012 by Spartak Moscow to Sporting Lisbon for a transfer fee of €4 million. Actually, Sporting only paid €1 million of the fee while Doyen Sports financed the remaining €3 million. In return, the investment company became the owner of 75% of the economic rights of the player.[1] Thus, in this specific case, the Portuguese club was interested in recruiting Marcos Rojo but was unable to pay the transfer fee required by Spartak Moscow, so that they required the assistance of Doyen Sports. The latter provided them with the necessary funds to pay part of the transfer fee in exchange of an interest on the economic rights of the player.
Given that the facts and circumstances leading to the dispute, as well as the decision of the CAS, were fully described by Antoine Duval in last week’s blog of Doyen vs. Sporting, this blog will solely focus on the decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (“FSC”) following Sporting’s appeal against the CAS award. As a preliminary point, the role of the FSC in the appeal against CAS awards should be clarified.More...
At
the end of December 2015, the CAS decided on a very public contractual
dispute between Sporting Clube de Portugal Futebol SAD (Sporting) and
Doyen Sports Investments Limited (Doyen). The club was claiming that
Doyen’s Economic Rights Participation Agreement
(ERPA) was invalid and refused to pay Doyen’s due share on the transfer
of Marcos Rojo to Manchester United. The dispute made a lot of noise
(see the excellent coverage by Tariq Panja from Bloomberg here, here and here)
as it was the first TPO case heard by the CAS after FIFA’s ban. Yet,
and it has to be clear from the outset, the case does not affect the
legality of FIFA’s TPO ban; it concerned only the compatibility of
Doyen’s ERPA with Swiss civil law. The hearing took place in June 2015,
but the case was put under a new light by the football leaks revelations unveiled at the end of 2015 (see our blog from December 2015). Despite these revelations, the CAS award favoured Doyen, and was luckily for us quickly made available on the old football leaks website.
This blog will provide a commentary of the CAS decision. It will be
followed in the coming days by a commentary by Shervine Nafissi on the
judgment, on appeal, by the Swiss Federal Tribunal. More...
Editor’s Note: Saverio
Spera is an Italian lawyer and LL.M. graduate in International Business Law from
King’s College London. He is currently an intern at the ASSER International
Sports Law Centre.
The time
is ripe to take a closer look at the CAS and its transparency, as this is one
of the ways to ensure its public accountability and its legitimacy. From 1986
to 2013, the number of arbitrations submitted to the CAS has grown from 2 to more
than 400 a year. More specifically, the number of appeals submitted almost doubled
in less than ten years (from 175 in 2006, to 349 in 2013[1]).
Therefore, the Court can be considered the judicial apex of an emerging transnational
sports law (or lex sportiva).[2]
In turn, the increased authority and power of this institution calls for
increased transparency, in order to ensure its legitimacy.[3]
More...
Editor’s note: N. Emre Bilginoglu[1]
is a lawyer based in Istanbul. His book entitled “Arbitration
on Football Contracts” was published in 2015.
Introduction
With a total market value of approximately 911 million
EUR, the Turkish Super League ranks as one of the prominent football leagues in
Europe. Five of the eighteen teams that make up half of the total market value
are based in Istanbul, a busy megalopolis that hosts a population of fifteen
million inhabitants.[2]
As might be expected, the elevated market value brings forth a myriad of
disputes, mainly between the clubs and the players. However, other crucial actors
such as coaches and agents are also involved in some of the disputes. These
actors of the football industry are of all countries, coming from various countries
with different legal systems.
One corollary of rapid globalisation is the
development of transnational law, which is quite visible in the lex sportiva.[3]
Like foreign investors, foreign actors of the sports industry look for some legal
security before signing a contract. FIFA does protect these foreign actors in
some way, providing players and coaches legal remedies for employment-related
disputes of an international dimension. But what if the legal system of the
FIFA member association does not provide a reasonable legal remedy for its
national actors?[4]
More...
Editor’s note: This report compiles all relevant news, events and materials on
International and European Sports Law based on the daily coverage provided on
our twitter feed @Sportslaw_asser. You are invited to complete this survey via the comments section
below, feel free to add links to important cases, documents and articles we
might have overlooked.
The Headlines
September hosted the very last bit of the sport summer 2016, most
notably in the form of the Rio Paralympic Games. Next to the spectacular
achievements displayed during these games, in the realm of sports law similar
thrilling developments hit town. The first very much expected #Sportslaw
highlight was the decision by the German Bundesgerichtshof
in the case concerning SV Wilhelmshaven. The second major (less expected) story
was the Statement of Objections issued by the European Commission against the International
Skating Union.More...
Editor's note: Marine Montejo is a graduate from the College of Europe in Bruges and
is currently an intern at the ASSER International Sports Law Centre.
On 3 June
2015, Sepp Blatter resigned as President of FIFA after another corruption scandal inside the world’s football
governing body was brought to light by the American authorities supported by
the Swiss prosecutor office. Two months after Michel Platini announced he would be a candidate for
the next FIFA Presidential election, on 25 September 2015, the Swiss prosecutor
opened an investigation against S.
Blatter on an alleged disloyal payment he authorised to M. Platini. On 8
October 2015, the FIFA Ethics Committee announced both of them were provisionally
suspended upon their hearings, a suspension that was later confirmed by CAS. In the end, M.
Platini was sanctioned with an eight years ban from
all football activities, later reduced to a six years ban by FIFA
Appeal Commission on 24 February 2016. In the meantime, he withdrew his candidacy to become the
next FIFA President. On 9 May 2016, after M. Platini appealed this sanction, the CAS confirmed the suspension but reduced it
to four years, leading to his resignation from the UEFA presidency and the
announcement of his intention to challenge the CAS award in front of the Swiss
Federal Tribunal.
On 19
September, the CAS finally published the full text of the award in the dispute between M.
Platini and FIFA. The award is in French as M. Platini requested that the
procedure be conducted in that language. You will find below a summary of the ‘highlights’
of the 63-page decision. More...
Editor's note: Marine Montejo is a graduate from the
College of Europe in Bruges and is currently an intern at the ASSER
International Sports Law Centre.
On 14 July 2016, the
Belgian competition authority refused to grant provisional measures to the
White Star Woluwe Football Club (“The White Star”), which would have allowed it
to compete in the Belgian top football division. The club was refused a licence
to compete in the above mentioned competition first by the Licences Commission
of the national football federation (“Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de
Foootball Association” or “URBSFA”) and then by the Belgian court of
arbitration for sports (“Cour Belge d’Arbitrage pour le Sport” or “CBAS”). The
White Star lodged a complaint to the national competition authority (“NCA”) and
requested provisional measures. The
Belgian competition authority rendered a much-overlooked decision (besides one commentary) in which it seems to
accept the reviewability of an arbitral award’s conformity with EU competition
law (articles 101 and 102 TFEU). More...
Editor’s note: Guido graduated cum
laude from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He teaches law at the Erasmus
Universiteit Rotterdam. He specializes in sports law and provides legal advice for the professional sports sector.
Introduction
This blog is a commentary on a recent case that hit
like a bombshell in the Netherlands (and
beyond) during
the recent Olympic Games in Rio. The case concerns a Dutch athlete, Yuri van
Gelder, who reached the Olympic finals in his sport, got sent home by ‘his’ NOC
(NOC*NSF) after a night out in Rio and launched legal proceedings in front of a
Dutch court to claim back his place in the finals. This commentary will attempt
to explain the Dutch ruling and evaluate whether a different legal route would
have been possible and preferable. More...
Editor’s note: This
report compiles all relevant news, events and materials on International and
European Sports Law based on the daily coverage provided on our twitter feed @Sportslaw_asser. You are invited to complete this survey via the
comments section below, feel free to add links to important cases, documents
and articles we have overlooked.
The Headlines
The McLaren Report on Russia’s State Doping System
It is difficult not to start this monthly
report without referring to the never-ending Russian doping investigation that
is shaking the sporting world. On 18 July, the independent investigation on
Sochi 2014 winter Olympics led by Prof. McLaren, a Canadian law professor, and requested
by the World Anti-Doping Agency (“WADA”), released its report. It confirmed
evidence of widespread, State-sponsored doping in Russian sports and called for
a full ban on the country from the next Rio Olympics. In response to the report,
the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) vowed to take the “toughest sanctions available”. However, and despite the race against time in the
run-up to Rio 2016, the IOC delayed its decision for several days amid a WADA statement and several press articles
calling for a ban of Russia from Rio Olympics. Meanwhile, it did open an investigation
against Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, the head official who allegedly supervised the overall doping cover up and explored all possible
legal actions against Russia. On 21 July, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) rejected the
appeal of the Russian Olympic Committee and 68
Russian athletes against the International Association of Athletics Federations
(“IAAF”) decisions to suspend All Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF) from IAAF
membership given the evidence of a state-sponsored doping system. As a
consequence, Russian track and field athletes were also banned from Rio 2016
Olympics. With the IAAF
welcoming this decision, one could think that nothing was standing in the way
of a full Olympic ban for all Russian athletes. While some Russian athletes announced
that they would appeal the CAS award to the Swiss Federal Court. Yelena
Isinbayeva, the banned pole vault champion, even took it a step further by
claiming that she would challenge the IAAF decision as far as the European Court of
Human Rights. Yet, it is very improbable that any of
these challenges be decided in time for the Rio Games.More...