A warning addressed to fans of French teams featuring in the recently launched video game NBA 2K15: Hurry up! The last jump ball for Strasbourg and Nanterre in NBA 2K 15 may occur earlier than expected. The French Labour Union of Basketball (Syndicat National du Basket, SNB) is dissatisfied that Euroleague and 2K Games did not ask (nor paid) for its permission before including the two teams of Pro A in the NBA 2K15 edition. What is at issue? French basketball players’ image rights have been transferred to SNB, which intends to start proceedings before the US Courts against 2K Games requesting 120.000 euros for unauthorized use of the players’ image rights. SNB is clear: it is not about the money, but rather to defend the players’ rights.[1] Strasbourg and Nanterre risk to “warm up” the virtual bench if this litigation goes ahead. 

Source: http://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=88661&start=250 

The clash between SNB and 2K Games, albeit unprecedented at the European level, should not come as a surprise. The commercialization of athletes’ image rights has become a sine qua non component of sports marketing.[2] The transfer of professional players’ image rights to their clubs or third parties is for some of them more lucrative than their salaries. In the framework of international basketball, this has led to the proliferation of image rights contracts, signed by the players in addition to their employment contracts. While the legal nature of image rights and their unauthorized use by third parties has been recently extensively debated- in the wake of US College Athletes image rights cases before US Courts which will be discussed in the second part of this blog series[3]-, image rights contracts and their enforcement by basketball players before the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT)[4] are still very much uncharted territories.

This blogpost will look at the basketball players’ image rights contracts in a three-pronged approach. First, we will explain how image rights contracts in international basketball serve as tax loopholes by the clubs, which increasingly force players to sign them (I). Thereafter, based on BAT’s case law, we will attempt to build a legal roadmap with regard to the enforcement of image rights contracts by players. In this light, we will examine the relationship between the main contract and the image rights contract as well as the role of the different dispute settlement clauses included in the different contracts when assessing BAT’s jurisdiction (II). Finally, we will analyse the position of the BAT in enforcing image rights contracts and the significant impact of its awards in the basketball world, taking into account the unique features of basketball arbitration (III). 

I. Image rights contracts in international basketball: Cherchez l’argent!

The use of image rights contracts leads to two possible scenarios. In the first one, which is the most common, a player signs an employment contract with a club indicating the player’s remuneration net of all taxes. This initial contract is usually characterized as the “main agreement”[5] or “master agreement”[6]. Thereafter, the club approaches the player with two additional contracts: the league contract which provides for a remarkably lower monthly salary than the main contract; and an image rights contracts, where the player assigns his rights to a third party, an image rights company. The league contract reporting a much lower wage than the wage actually offered to the player is sent to the league and is used for tax purposes. In parallel, the club signs an image rights contract with the image rights company to which the player has previously assigned his intellectual property rights. According to this contract, the company owns the player’s image rights. This means that the player assigns to the club the use of these rights for commercial and promotional purposes. As a result of this assignment, the club undertakes the obligation to pay a specific amount of money per month to the company. Once the club pays the image rights company, the image rights company transfers this amount to the player.

In order to understand this quite complex scheme, let’s use a concrete example. A player signs with the club a main contract indicating a remuneration of EUR 300.000. Thereafter, the player signs the league contract indicating a remuneration of EUR 30.000 by the club, while the club signs a contract with an image rights company and undertakes to pay a total amount of EUR 270.000. Finally, the player receives the amount of EUR 270.000 by the image rights company. Thus, it is clear that a combination of the league and the image rights contracts amounts to sum foreseen in the main contract (30.000+270.000=300.000). While this fictitious transfer of money through a third party does not seem to have a practical effect on the player’s remuneration, the split of the main contract into two separate agreements helps the club to tailor its tax obligations. In fact, the club would in principle have had to pay taxes on the full amount of EUR 300.000. Nonetheless, by breaking up the payment into different amounts, the club pays taxes and social contributions for the individual income of EUR 30.000 only. True, the club is also obliged to pay the taxes due on the EUR 270.000 transferred to the image rights company. However, taking into account that the tax rate over intellectual property rights is typically much lower than that concerning individual income, the club gains significant tax benefits.[7]

In the second potential scenario, in parallel to the main contract, the player signs a side agreement with the club, which explicitly splits the net compensation into an amount derived from the league contract and an amount derived from the image contract. Subsequently the player enters into an exclusive license agreement with an image rights company to which he assigns the use of his image rights receiving as compensation the amount stipulated in the side agreement. At the same time, the club enters into a sublicense agreement with the image rights company in order to use the player’s image rights, by paying the company the same amount of money that the company then pays to the player under the license agreement.

In short, this scheme is a fiction invented by the clubs in order to get significant tax advantages. While this is done pro forma, without any intent of changing the player’s rights and obligations under the main contract[8], this tax evasion scheme can lead to the club evading also its contractual duties when a club fails to pay the player. In this case, with respect to any outstanding remuneration, can the player enforce the image rights contract against the club in BAT proceedings? 

II. How the BAT establishes its jurisdiction on image rights contracts disputes

An overview of the BAT case law shows that players bring a dispute against their club for outstanding payments on the grounds of a broadly drafted arbitration clause in the main contract, which provides for BAT’s jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of, or in connection with the main contract. However, as is already discussed, a player’s remuneration is often based on a matrix of several contracts – the main contract, the league contract, the image rights contract and/or the license agreement-, which may contain a dispute resolution clause of their own that does not refer to the BAT. Therefore, when a dispute for outstanding payments is brought before the BAT, the arbitrator first has to determine whether the claim made by the player falls within the scope of the BAT arbitration clause included in the main contract. Thus, the arbitrator must consequently determine the relation between the main contract and the other contracts, including the image rights contracts.

The difficulty emerges from the fact that the contracts do not define how they should inter-relate. As a result, the BAT has to interpret the contracts and decide whether the subsequent contracts actually supersede the main contract and the applicable BAT arbitration clause or whether they only supplement the main contract. Namely, the clubs, relying on the fact that the image rights contract is signed after the main contract and referring to the legal principle lex posterior derogate legi priori[9], claim that the dispute settlement provision contained in those contracts override the BAT arbitration clause included in the main contract.[10]

In order to decide on its jurisdiction and the underlying relation between the several contracts, the BAT has consistently used a double test based on the common intention of the parties and the wording of the BAT arbitration clause contained in the main contract. At first, the BAT examines whether the main contract includes all the essential elements with regard to the player’s rights remuneration. Then, it elaborates whether these terms reflect the parties’ common intent under the main agreement to guarantee the payment of the full salary to the player, irrespective of any modalities that would be agreed upon in subsequent contracts as to the mode and schedule of payments.[11] If the main contract is seen as containing the common agreement of the parties on the full amount of remuneration, any further agreement referring to the way this payment is organized has only a supplementary function. The second criterion is based on the interpretation of the BAT arbitration clause. The main contract usually contains a broad BAT arbitration provision that covers any dispute arising from the main contract. Once established that the common intent of the parties is to guarantee the salary stipulated in the main contract, the broad terms of the arbitration clause necessarily encompass any dispute relating to the non- payment of any part of the player’s total salary. Once these criteria are fulfilled, the BAT asserts that the outstanding payments deriving from the image rights contracts fall within the scope of the BAT arbitration clause.

Furthermore, in some cases, the BAT has introduced other criteria, such as the necessity to establish a link between the contracts. In the 0115/10 case, the BAT established a close link between the main contract and the image rights contract, in a way that the image rights contract could not exist but for the original contract.[12] Interestingly enough, this rather broad interpretation has been inspired by the liberal case law of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which requires that the interconnection between different contracts be taken into account when examining the substantive validity of an arbitration agreement.[13]

It is remarkable that until now, when examining the jurisdictional basis, the BAT has consistently adopted a rather liberal approach by piercing the fictitious veil between the club, the player and the third party when using overlapping contractual constructions. However, on the merits, the BAT’s approach is not totally consistent. 

III. Enforcing image rights contracts: the BAT’s enigmatic approach

In a series of awards, the BAT has found the clubs liable for the breach of the image rights contract and the subsequent outstanding payment of the player.

Applying the legal roadmap established above, the BAT has addressed the supplementary role of the subsequent contracts in organizing the payment schedule of the full remuneration of the player provided in the main contract. Indeed, from a contractual point of view, the terms of the main contract are deemed sufficient to entitle the player to claim the entire amount owed to him on the basis of that contract alone.[14] In this sense, the fact that image rights payments have been made via a third party does not free the club from its duty to guarantee the full remuneration of the player.[15] To reinforce this argument, the BAT has even asserted that the only case in which the club would not be found liable for breach of image rights contract would be the case where the image rights contract explicitly provided a waiver of the player’s claims against the club relating to image rights.[16]

However, this - until recently- consistent approach has been overturned in the latest BAT award concerning the enforcement of image rights contracts.[17] In that case, the image contract was signed between a company to which the claimant assigned the rights to his promotion and a company managing the image and endorsement rights of the club. Although having confirmed the supplementary role of the image rights contract with regard to the employment contract at hand, the arbitrator chose to deviate from the entrenched interpretation in BAT jurisprudence of the intent of the parties. Namely, the arbitrator interpreted the parties’ behaviour as intending to discharge the club of its obligation to guarantee the full amount of the player’s salary under the main contract.

While, in this particular case, the company to which the player assigned his image rights could have been found liable for not transferring the missing amounts to the player, the BAT’s approach is questionable in that it undermined the club’s liability under the main contract. At this point, it should be highlighted that BAT decides all cases ex aequo et bono.[18] In this light, it is the opinion of the author of this blogpost that it would be contrary to general considerations of justice and fairness to consider that the club could take advantage of a tax-optimising structure to no longer guarantee principal amounts contractually due to the player. In other words, it would be unfair to consider that the player has implicitly renounced the guarantees offered to him by the club under the main contract. 

Conclusive Remarks

The system of image rights contracts in international basketball is fragile. Based on the lack of legal certainty in BAT jurisprudence, this blogpost has evidenced the risk that clubs use the BAT to escape their obligations deriving from the image rights contracts. Taking into account that BAT awards are directly enforceable under the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, subject only to an appeal on the limited grounds provided in Article 190 Swiss Private International Law Act (PILA)[19], a denial of the BAT to enforce image rights contracts against the clubs leaves the players deprived of any real legal avenue to vindicate their rights. In this sense, a consistent approach of the BAT with regard to the intimate relation existing between the image rights contract and the main employment contract would not only be desirable, but would also be in line with the ex aequo et bono principle.

[1] Johan Passave-Ducteil, the president of SNB remarks in l’Equipe:"Ce n’est pas une histoire d’argent, on défend le droit des joueurs"

[2] D-R Martens, ‘An innovative System for Resolving Disputes in Sport (only in Sport?)’ (2011) 1-2 International Sports Law Journal 54, 60.

[3] Edward O’ Bannon et al v National Collegiate Athletics Association, Electronic Arts Inc and Collegiate Licensing Company ( US District Court, 08.08.2014) and NCAA Student-Athlete Name and Likeness Licensing Litigation, 724 F. 3d 1268 (9^th Cir. 2013).

[4] The tribunal was established by FIBA in 2006 under the name “FIBA Arbitral Tribunal (FAT)”. In accordance with the 2010 FIBA General Statutes, the tribunal was renamed into “Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT)”.

[5] Vladimir Golubovic v Basketball Club Union Olimpija Ljubljaba, BAT 0174/11, para 6.

[6] Pawel Kikoeski v KK Union Olimpija Ljubljana, BAT 0155/11, para 23.

[7] In the case where the image rights company is seated in a tax haven state, the tax benefits are almost double for the club.

[8] BAT 0155/11(n 6), para 51.  See also, 0174/11(n 5) para 10: “The Club suggested the image contract because it served tax driven purposes only. That was the only purpose for such a contract, and it was irrelevant for the player, because his remuneration were settled in net amount (tax free)”.

[9] i.e a subsequent law imparts the abolition of a previous one

[10] Richard Hendrix v Club Baloncesto Granada, FAT 0115/10, para 36.

[11] FAT 0115/10(n 10), para 44, Dalibor Bagaric v Fortitudo Pallacanestro SrL FAT 0105/10 para 49, Lazaros Papadopoulos v Fortitudo Palacanestro Societa’ Sportica Dilettantistica a R.L. FAT 0071/09 para 61, Darryl Eugene Strawberry and Bill Duffy International Inc v Fortitudo Palacanestro Societa’ Sportica Dilettantistica a R.L. FAT 0067/09, para 66.

[12] FAT 0115/10 (n 10), para 41.

[13] Ibid, para 43 where the arbitrator makes an extensive reference to Swiss Federal Tribunal case law: Decision of the Swiss Federal Tribunal of 16 October 2003, reported in ATF 129 III 727, 735 using the

word “liberal” with reference to ATF 121 III 38, 45 and the decisions 4P.126/2001 of 18 December 2001

reported in ASA Bulletin 2002, p. 482; 4C.40/2003 of 19 May 2003 at 4, reported in ASA Bulletin 2004, p.

344; see also decision 4P.230/2000 of 7 February 2001 reported in ASA Bulletin 2001, p. 523.

[14] FAT 0067/09 (n 11), para 83.

[15] FAT 0071/09 (n 11), para 76.

[16] FAT 0115/10 (n 10), para 64.

[17] Steven Smith v Virtus Palacanestro Bologna S.p.A, BAT 0413/13

[18] BAT Arbitration Rules, Article 15.1: "Unless the parties have agreed otherwise the Arbitrator shall decide the dispute ex aequo et bono, applying general considerations of justice and fairness without reference to any particular national or international law ".

[19] In fact, according to Article 190 (2) PILA, only serious procedural defects or rulings on substance that are contrary to international public policy may constitute grounds to set aside an award. See A Rigozzi, ‘Challenging Awards of the Court of Arbitration for Sport’ (2010)1 Journal of International Dispute Settlement 217, 217-254.

Editor's note: We (Ben Van Rompuy and Antoine Duval) are at the origin of today's decision by the European Commission finding that the International Skating Union's eligibility rules are contrary to EU competition law. In 2014, we were both struck by the news that ISU threatened lifetime ban against speed skaters wishing to participate in the then projected Icederby competitions and convinced that it was running against the most fundamental principles of EU competition law. We got in touch with Mark and Niels and lodged on their behalf a complaint with the European Commission. Three years after we are pleased to see that the European Commission, and Commissioner Vestager in particular, fully embraced our arguments and we believe this decision will shift the tectonic structure of sports governance in favour of athletes for years to come.

Today is a great day for Mark Tuitert and Niels Kerstholt, but more importantly for all European athletes. The European Commission did not only consider the International Skating Union's eligibility rules contrary to European law, it sent out a strong message to all international sports federations that the interests of those who are at the centre of sports, the athletes, should not be disregarded. This case was always about giving those that dedicate their lives to excelling in a sport a chance to compete and to earn a decent living. The majority of athletes are no superstars and struggle to make ends meet and it is for them that this decision can be a game-changer.

However, we want to stress that this case was never about threatening the International Skating Union’s role in regulating its sport. And we very much welcome the exceptional decision taken by the European Commission to refrain from imposing a fine which could have threatened the financial stability of the International Skating Union. The International Skating Union, and other sports federations, are reminded however that they cannot abuse their legitimate regulatory power to protect their economic interests to the detriment of the athletes.

We urge the International Skating Union to enter into negotiations with representatives of the skaters to devise eligibility rules which are respectful of the interests of both the athletes and their sport.

Since the summer of 2014, it has been our honour to stand alongside Mark and Niels in a 'David versus Goliath' like challenge to what we always perceived as an extreme injustice. In this fight, we were also decisively supported by the team of EU Athletes and its Chance to Compete campaign.

Finally, we wish to extend a special thank you to Commissioner Vestager. This case is a small one for the European Commission, but Commissioner Vestager understood from the beginning that small cases do matter to European citizens and that European competition law is there to provide a level playing for all, and we are extremely grateful for her vision.

Dr. Ben Van Rompuy (Leiden University) and Dr. Antoine Duval (T.M.C. Asser Instituut)

In the past couple of years, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) made remarkable steps towards embedding human rights into their practices and policies. These developments have been discussed at length and in detail in this blog and elsewhere, but a short overview at this point is necessary to set the scene. Arguably, most changes were sparked by John Ruggie’s report from 2016, in which he articulated a set of concrete recommendations for FIFA “on what it means for FIFA to embed respect for human rights across its global operations”, using the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) as authoritative standard.[i] As a result, in May 2017, FIFA published a human rights policy, in which it commits to respecting human rights in accordance with the UNGPs, identifies its salient human rights risks, and acknowledges the potential adverse impacts it can have on human rights in general and human rights of people belonging to specific groups. In October 2017, it adopted new bidding regulations requiring bidders to develop a human rights strategy and conduct an independent human rights risk assessment as part of their bid. In March 2017, FIFA also created a Human Rights Advisory Board, which regularly evaluated FIFA’s human rights progress and made recommendations on how FIFA should address human rights issues linked to its activities. The mandate of the Advisory Board expired at the end of last year and the future of this body is unknown at this point.

While some of these steps can be directly connected to the recommendations in the Ruggie report, other recommendations have largely been ignored. One example of the latter and focus of this blog post is the issue of embedding human rights at the level of national football associations. It outlines recent steps taken by the German football association “Deutscher Fussball-Bund” (DFB) and the Dutch football association “Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond” (KNVB) in relation to human rights, and explores to what extent these steps can be regarded as proactive moves by those associations or rather spillover effects from FIFA’s human rights efforts.

The DFB

Since 2017, DFB runs a working group on the association’s human rights concept. This was triggered by DFB’s application to host the EURO 2024 and the social programs around the 2018 World Cup. In particular, the required human rights strategy for the EURO 2024 application led DFB to adopt a statutory commitment to human rights in 2019. Paragraph 2 of DFB’s Statutes read as follows:

“The DFB takes responsibility for respecting all internationally-recognized human rights and promotes the respect for these rights. It strictly opposes unconstitutional behaviour as well as any form of discriminatory or inhuman attitudes and behaviours. This applies to every form of violence, irrespective of it being of physical or mental nature. The DFB commits in particular to the protection of children and youth from sexual abuse”.[ii]

The human rights strategy for the 2024 tournament has been developed through engaging a variety of stakeholders, including the German Human Rights Institute, the German Olympic Committee and a range of civil society organizations representing the rights of children or fans amongst others. According to the DFB and some of these stakeholders, the strategy builds on and streamlines existing initiatives regarding corporate social responsibility and youth work. The DFB claims that human rights have been part of the DFB’s national and international activities for years, although not framed within recognized human rights standards. Since 2010, its Ethics Code enshrines values such as respect, diversity, integrity, transparency and solidarity in football. Moreover, it promotes projects on participation, integration, fair play, diverse fan cultures, and the prevention of violence and promotion of equality both at grass-roots and elite level sports. This certainly provides a good vantage point for DFB’s human rights efforts. Currently, the DFB is finalizing its human rights policy, and in the meantime, a number of smaller initiative were taken, such as the organization of hearings on the issue of political statements of players in 2020.

The KNVB

Last month, the KNVB announced its support for the adoption of a sport and human rights covenant, similar to the existing agreements on international responsible business conduct. In its announcement, it acknowledges the unique position of sports to promote human rights and highlights the need to use this power also in the context of international tournaments. According to the KNVB, such a covenant would advance collaboration with governments in host countries and help to address issues, promote dialogue and investigation, facilitate the exchange of knowledge and information, and create a level-playing field. Moreover, the KNVB claims that it can help to foster sustainable positive change regarding the human rights situation in host countries and provide players and associations with a responsible manner to participate in international tournaments.

KNVB’s call for a covenant has not been without criticism. Amnesty Netherlands explicitly voiced their concerns regarding the initiative on twitter, welcoming the efforts of KNVB to look at the human rights situation in Qatar in more detail, but opposing the creation of a covenant, for the reason that it would not provide any remedy to migrant workers in Qatar. The hazardous and inhuman working conditions on World Cup-related construction sites have been documented extensively, including in a recent study conducted by Amnesty Netherlands. These reports show that despite legislative changes to Qatar’s labour law, changes on the ground are lacking and additional human rights issues related to the 2022 World Cup, such as the protection of LGBTQI fans remain largely unaddressed. While the KNVB published its point of views on a World Cup in Qatar together with a list of initiatives regarding the tournament, these points and measures are rather broad and do not explicitly address existing human rights risks. An exception is an event planned for this year on human rights and sport events hosted together with the Dutch House of Representatives.

In addition to KNVB’s recent decision to adopt a sport and human rights covenant, a number of existing KNVB initiatives are worth highlighting from a human rights perspective. For instance, the KNVB was one of the football associations pushing FIFA to integrate human rights requirements into bidding regulations for international tournaments. Other examples relate more to the day-to-day business of football, rather than events, such as KNVB’s efforts on promoting diversity and countering racism and other forms of discrimination within the world of Dutch football. While these efforts are clearly linked to human rights standards, they are not framed in a human rights language, nor streamlined under a commitment to human rights.

FIFA’s ‘trickle down effect’ or civil society pressure?

On a global scale, the DFB and KNVB might be the pioneers of national football associations starting concrete efforts to embed human rights into their policies and practices. Clearly, the DFB is a couple of steps ahead of the KNVB, but both associations are committed to in particular addressing human rights issues in host countries of football tournaments. Furthermore, both draw inspiration from the broader business and human rights movement and explicitly reference the respective National Action Plans on business and human rights, which are policy documents adopted by the governments to implement the UNGPs. However, it becomes clear that through focusing on human rights risks related to host countries of international tournaments, the KNVB only reacts to a fraction of the actual human rights risks involved in the world of football.

Nevertheless, both associations are making a start and in order to find ways for encouraging other national football associations to follow suit, it is essential to understand what triggered these recent initiatives and changes. Arguably, there are two possible explanations. The first is that FIFA’s human rights efforts begin to have a trickle down-effect. The need for this has been stressed by Ruggie in his 2016 report. He recommends FIFA to adopt a human rights policy that applies to its relationships with its member associations (Recommendation 1.1) and advises FIFA to use its annual member associations’ conferences to raise awareness on human rights responsibilities of national football associations (Recommendation 4.5). Moreover, he recommends that “FIFA should ensure that the human rights commitment in Article 3 of the FIFA Statutes is mirrored in the requirements of the Standard Statutes for member associations, and is also extended to the requirements for confederations’ statutes at the earliest opportunity” (Recommendation 1.3). While FIFA has not yet adapted the Standard Statutes for member associations, DFB nevertheless decided to mirror FIFA’s statutory human rights commitment in its own Statutes. In fact, when presenting its human rights efforts on its website, the DFB explicitly refers to FIFA’s human rights policy and human rights-related regulations of UEFA.

The second explanation concerns the increasing pressure from civil society in both countries, due to the 2022 World Cup coming closer, but also due to the rise of reports on cases of abuse in the world of football in the past years. In particular the cases of mental, physical, and sexual abuse of female football players on the national team of Afghanistan & Haiti made international headlines, as well as the recent revelations of cases of sexual abuse of young football players in clubs in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. While these types of abuses where not explicitly addressed in Ruggie’s report, it does identify gender discrimination as “endemic human rights challenge” for the world of association football.[iii] Pressure on national football associations arguably also increased through national and regional regulation. Both associations seem to acknowledge the parallels to the broader business and human rights movement, which currently sees a trend of mandatory due diligence laws on national and regional levels. The fact that football is big business, both on a day-to-day basis and when big tournaments are happening is uncontested. Therefore, there is no doubt that the UNGPs’ corporate responsibility to respect human rights applies to national football associations and that the UNGPs provide a good starting point and framework for national football associations to understand and implement their human rights responsibilities.

Conclusion

Obviously, these two explanations are not mutually exclusive and FIFA’s human rights journey plays an important role in the efforts taken by the DFB and the KNVB. Moreover, the importance of Ruggie’s report in 2016 cannot be underestimated. Nevertheless, it seems like some of these recent human rights efforts by national football associations are rather reactive than proactive, following FIFA’s lead and the pressure by civil society on the world of sports more generally. As long as the result would be the same, it should not matter much. That, however, is questionable when it comes to sport and human rights. Reacting to specific issues when they arise can result in a piece-meal approach that might not only be more labour intensive but more importantly is likely to overlook a range of human rights risks related to the world of football and sports more generally. Therefore, a comprehensive approach is key to understanding the human rights risks involved and identifying ways to address these risks.[iv]

The hope is that DFB’s and KNVB’s efforts will develop further and eventually ensure that human rights are fully embedded and respected in the world of (national) football. Very concretely, these efforts can have great potential for the joint bid of these two countries together with Belgium for the 2027 Women’s World Cup, which provides a good opportunity for knowledge exchange between those associations on their human rights efforts.

[i] John G Ruggie, ‘“For the Game. For the World.” - FIFA and Human Rights’ (2016) 4

[ii] Translated by the author. See original source here.

[iii] John G Ruggie, ‘“For the Game. For the World.” - FIFA and Human Rights’ (2016) 24

[iv] Sally Engle Merry, The Seductions of Quantification: Measuring Human Rights, Gender Violence, and Sex Trafficking (The University of Chicago Press 2016) 46; Daniela Heerdt & Nadia Bernaz, Football and Women’s Rights: the Case for Indicators for FIFA’s Feminist Transformation (2020) 34, Jean Monnet Working Paper 5/20.