Introduction
On 25 March 2015, the Labour Court of Mainz
issued its decision in proceedings brought by a German footballer,
Heinz Müller, against his (now former) club 1. FSV Mainz 05 (Mainz 05). The
Court sided with the player and ruled that Müller should have been employed by
Mainz 05 for an indefinite period following his 2009 three year contract with
the club which was subsequently extended in 2011 to run until mid-2014. The
judgment was based on national law implementing Directive 1999/70 on fixed-term
work[1]
(Directive) with the latter being introduced pursuant to art. 155(2) TFEU (ex
art. 139(2) TEC). On the basis of this
article, European social partners’ may request a framework agreement which they
conclude to be implemented on the European Union (EU, Union) level by a Council
decision on a proposal from the Commission. One of the objectives of the framework
agreement,[2]
and therefore of the Directive, was to establish a system to prevent abuse
arising from the use of successive fixed-term employment contracts or
relationships[3]
which lies at the heart of the discussed problem.[4]
More...
Ever since UEFA started imposing disciplinary
measures to football clubs for not complying with Financial Fair Play’s break-even requirement in 2014, it remained a mystery how UEFA’s
disciplinary bodies were enforcing the Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play (“FFP”)
regulations, what measures it was imposing, and what the justifications were for
the imposition of these measures. For over a year, the general public could
only take note of the 23 settlement agreements between Europe’s footballing
body and the clubs. The evidential obstacle for a proper analysis was that the
actual settlements remained confidential, as was stressed in several of our
previous Blogs.[1]
The information provided by the press releases lacked the necessary information
to answer the abovementioned questions.
On 24 April 2015, the UEFA Club Financial
Control Body lifted part of the veil by referring FC
Dynamo Moscow to the Adjudicatory Body. Finally, the Adjudicatory Body had the
opportunity to decide on a “FFP case. The anxiously-awaited Decision was reached by
the Adjudicatory Chamber on 19 June and published not long after. Now that the
Decision has been made public, a new stage of the debate regarding UEFA’s FFP
policy can start.More...
…and
everything under the sun is in tune,
but the sun
is eclipsed by the moon…[1]
The issue
Ruffling a few feathers, on 30 May 2015 the FIFA Executive Committee rather unsurprisingly, considering the previous warnings,[2]
adopted a decision to suspend with immediate effect the Indonesian Football
Federation (PSSI) until such time as PSSI is able to comply with its
obligations under Articles 13 and 17 of the FIFA Statutes.[3] Stripping PSSI of its membership rights, the decision
results in a prohibition of all Indonesian teams (national or club) from having
any international sporting contact. In other words, the decision precludes all
Indonesian teams from participating in any competition organised by either FIFA
or the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). In addition, the suspension of
rights also precludes all PSSI members and officials from benefits of any FIFA
or AFC development programme, course or training during the term of suspension.
This decision coincides with a very recent award by the Court of Arbitration
for Sport (CAS) in this ambit, which shall be discussed further below.[4]More...
On 29
May 2015, the Brussels Court of First Instance delivered its highly anticipated
judgment on the challenge brought by football players’ agent Daniel Striani (and
others) against UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations
(FFP). In media reports,[1]
the judgment was generally portrayed as a significant initial victory for the
opponents of FFP. The Brussels Court not only made a reference for a
preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) but also imposed an
interim order blocking UEFA from implementing the second phase of the FFP that
involves reducing the permitted deficit for clubs.
A
careful reading of the judgment, however, challenges the widespread expectation
that the CJEU will now pronounce itself on the compatibility of the FFP with EU
law. More...
UEFA announced on 8
May that it had entered into Financial Fair Play settlement agreements with 10 European
football clubs. Together with the four other agreements made in February 2015, this brings the total to 14 FFP
settlements for 2015 and 23 since UEFA adopted modifications in its Procedural
rules and allowed settlements agreements to be made between the Clubs and the Chief
Investigator of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB).[1]
In the two years during
which UEFA’s FFP regulations have been truly up and running we have witnessed the
centrality taken by the settlement procedure in their enforcement. It is
extremely rare for a club to be referred to the FFP adjudication chamber. In
fact, only the case regarding Dynamo Moscow has been referred to the adjudication chamber. Thus, having
a close look at the settlement practice of UEFA is crucial to gaining a good
understanding of the functioning of FFP. Hence, this blog offers a detailed
analysis of this year’s settlement agreements and compares them with last year’s settlements. More...
On
the first of May 2015, the Spanish Government finally signed the Royal Decree
allowing the joint selling of the media rights of the Spanish top two football
leagues. The Minister for Sport stated that the Decree will allow clubs to “pay
their debts with the social security and the tax authorities and will enable
the Spanish teams to compete with the biggest European Leagues in terms of
revenues from the sale of media rights”.[1]Although
the signing of the Royal Decree was supposed to close a very long debate and
discussion between the relevant stakeholders, its aftermath shows that the Telenovela is not entirely over.
This
blog post will first provide the background story to the selling of media rights
in Spain. It will, thereafter, analyse the main points of the Royal Decree and outline
how the system will work in practice. Finally, the blog will shortly address
the current frictions between the Spanish League (LFP) and the Spanish football
federation (RFEF).More...
Editor's note: Ben Van Rompuy, Head of the ASSER International Sports Law Centre, was recently interviewed by LexisNexis UK for their in-house adviser service.
With kind permission from LexisNexis we reproduce the interview on our blog in
its entirety.
How does competition law affect the sports sector?
The application of EU competition law to the sports
sector is a fairly recent and still unfolding development. It was only in the
mid-1990s, due to the growing commercialization of professional sport, that
there emerged a need to address competition issues in relation to, for
instance, ticketing arrangements or the sale of media rights. More...
INTRODUCTION
Almost a year after their announcement, the new
FIFA Regulations on
working with Intermediaries (“FIFA Regulations”) came into force on 1 April 2015. Their purpose is
to create a more simple and transparent system of regulation of football agents.
It should be noted, however, that the new FIFA rules enable every national football
association to regulate their own system on players’ intermediaries, provided
they respect the compulsory minimum requirements adopted. In an industry that
is already cutthroat, it thus remains to be seen whether FIFA’s “deregulation”
indeed creates transparency, or whether it is a Pandora’s Box to future regulatory
confusion.
This blog post will provide an overview of the
new FIFA Regulations on working with intermediaries and especially its minimum
requirements. Provided that
national associations are encouraged to “draw up regulations that shall incorporate
the principles established in these provisions”[1], three different national regulations
have been taken as case-studies: the English FA Regulations, the Spanish RFEF
Regulations and the Brazilian CBF Regulations. After mapping their main points of
convergence and principal differences, the issues that could arise from these regulatory
differences shall be analyzed. More...
Introduction: FIFA’s TPO ban and its compatibility with EU competition law.
Day 1: FIFA must regulate TPO, not ban it.
Day 2: Third-party entitlement to shares of transfer fees: problems and solutions
Day 3: The Impact of the TPO Ban on South American Football.
Day 5: Why FIFA's TPO ban is justified.
Editor's note: In this fourth part of our blog symposium on FIFA's TPO ban Daniel Geey shares his 'UK perspective' on the ban. The English Premier League being one of the first leagues to have outlawed TPO in 2010, Daniel will outline the regulatory steps taken to do so and critically assess them. Daniel is an associate in Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP's Competition and EU Regulatory Law Group. As well as being a famous 'football law' twitterer, he has also published numerous articles and blogs on the subject.
What is
Third Party Investment?
In brief
Third Party Investment (TPI) in the football industry, is where a football club
does not own, or is not entitled to, 100% of the future transfer value of a
player that is registered to play for that team. There are numerous models for
third party player agreements but the basic premise is that companies,
businesses and/or individuals provide football clubs or players with money in
return for owning a percentage of a player’s future transfer value. This
transfer value is also commonly referred to as a player’s economic rights.
There are instances where entities will act as speculators by purchasing a
percentage share in a player directly from a club in return for a lump sum that
the club can then use as it wishes. More...
Introduction: FIFA’s TPO ban and its compatibility with EU competition law.
Day 1: FIFA must regulate TPO, not ban it.
Day 2: Third-party entitlement to shares of transfer fees: problems and solutions
Day 4: Third Party Investment from a UK Perspective.
Day 5: Why FIFA's TPO ban is justified.
Editor’s note: Ariel N. Reck is an Argentine
lawyer specialized in the football industry. He is a guest professor at ISDE’s
Global Executive Master in International Sports Law, at the FIFA CIES Sports
law & Management course (Universidad Católica Argentina) and the Universidad
Austral Sports Law diploma (Argentina) among other prestigious courses. He is a
regular conference speaker and author in the field of sports law.
Being an Argentine lawyer, Ariel will focus on the impact FIFA’s TPO ban
will have (and is already having) on South American football.More...