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. 

Background: the proceedings before the Commission

In May 2013, Daniel Striani, a Belgian football agent licensed by the Royal Belgian Football Association, lodged a complaint with the European Commission against UEFA. He requested the Commission to launch an investigation into the break-even requirement contained in Articles 58 to 63 of the FFP. According to Striani, the break-even requirement infringes the European antitrust rules (Article 101 and 102 TFEU) and the free movement rules.

The complaint put the Commission in a difficult position. It had repeatedly expressed political support for the principles underlying the UEFA FFP. In 2009, for instance, the Commission organized a conference on the subject matter and in 2012 then Commissioner for Competition Almunia issued a joint statement with UEFA president Michel Platini stressing that the FFP are “consistent with the aims and objectives of European Union policy in the field of State Aid”. Although the vague statements were carefully drafted to prejudice a proper legal assessment, the withdrawal of the Commission’s support would have been politically embarrassing.

The Commission, however, is not obliged to carry out an investigation on the basis of every complaint brought before it. Given its limited resources, the Commission uses prioritization criteria, set out in its Notice on the handling of complaints, to determine whether there is sufficient Union interest in pursuing a complaint.

In April 2014, the Commission informed Striani, pursuant to Article 7(1) of Regulation 773/2004, of its intention to reject his complaint. The Commission put forward three grounds for rejecting the complaint. First, the Commission considered that Striani lacked a legitimate interest to lodge a complaint. Only natural and legal persons that can demonstrate that they are “directly and adversely affected” by the alleged infringement are entitled to lodge a complaint.[2] Second, the Commission argued that Striani could secure the protection of his rights before a national court. Third, the Commission stressed that it had received only one complaint regarding the FFP.

Striani’s legal counsel, Jean-Louis Dupont, challenged the first and third grounds for rejecting the complaint. He reiterated the argument that the FFP directly affects football player’s agents. In response to the third ground, he submitted three further complaints on behalf of individual football fans, a players’ agent and the Manchester City FC Supporters Club. Evidently, the fact that only two months after lodging his complaint, Striani brought a civil action before the Brussels Court of First Instance (developing virtually similar arguments as set out in the complaint) made it difficult to counter the argument that the complainant could seek relief before national courts.

The European Commission eventually opted for the easiest way out. In October 2014, it formally rejected Striani’s complaint on the sole ground that “the Brussels Court is well-placed to handle the matters raised in your complaint. This is because your rights will be protected by that court in a satisfactory manner”. Hold that thought.

The civil action before the Brussels Court

While the complaint was unsuccessful, the proceedings before the Commission did make clear that Striani needed stronger arguments to demonstrate that he has standing to complain about the FFP’s compatibility with EU (competition) law. 

Striani essentially argues that the FFP break-even rule, by reducing the number of transfers, the level of the transfer fees and the players’ salaries, has a deflationary effect on the revenue of players’ agents. Since agents are thus only indirectly affected, substantial changes were made to the original claim to buttress the legitimate interest of the original claimant.

First, when Striani commenced his civil action before the Brussels Court in June 2013, he only sought one symbolic euro as compensation for the material damage that he had allegedly suffered. In September 2014, the amount of relief sought by Striani was changed to EUR 69.750 per year since the introduction of the break-even rule.

Second, a number of other claimants later joined the same proceeding. The Brussels court admitted the voluntary intervention of: (1) Dejan Mitrovic, a players’ agent domiciled in Belgium but licensed by the Serbian Football Association; (2) RFC Sérésien, a Belgian Second Division football club (now competing as Serain United); and (3) a total of 53 football fans (i.e. supporters of Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City) domiciled in France and the United Kingdom. 

The judgment of the Brussels Court: an example of legal fiction

In its ruling of 29 May 2015, the Brussels Court declared itself incompetent to deal with Striani’s case because it has no jurisdiction.

Since UEFA challenged its competence when the litigation was initiated, the Court had to establish whether the requirements of international jurisdiction are satisfied. When an EU competition law action is brought against an undertaking having its seat in Switzerland, the jurisdiction of Member States’ courts is determined in relation to the Lugano II Convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (Lugano Convention).[3] The fundamental principle laid down in Article 2 is that the defendant should be sued where it is domiciled. Since the FFP were adopted by UEFA, the place of the event giving rise to the damage must be regarded as having taken place within Switzerland. Hence, in principle, only the Swiss courts have jurisdiction over the recovery of damages suffered by the alleged anti-competitive nature of the FFP.

Only by way of derogation, Article 5(3) of the Lugano Convention, applicable to torts (delict or quasi-delict), grants special territorial jurisdiction also to the courts where “the harmful event occurred or may occur”. This covers both place where the damage occurred (Belgium) and the place of the event giving rise to it (Switzerland).[4] It follows that the defendant may be sued, at the option of the applicant, in the courts of either of those places. According to settled case law, however, this exceptional attribution of jurisdiction requires the existence of “particularly close connecting factors” between the dispute and the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur.[5]

The Brussels Court disagreed with UEFA that the damage pleaded by Striani is speculative and purely hypothetical.[6] At the same time, it stressed that this damage is no more than the indirect consequence of the harm initially suffered by the clubs (participating in UEFA’s Champions’ League and Europa League competitions): “Neither the players nor the players’ agents are addresses of the FFP. Subsequently, players could only suffer indirect harm and agents only ‘very indirect’ harm”.[7] Given that jurisdiction by virtue of Article 5(3) of the Lugano Convention depends on the identification of direct harm, the Court concluded that the necessary connecting factors based on the defendant’s act are absent. In other words, because the FFP do not adversely affect Striani directly, he lacks standing to bring a damages action for breach of EU (competition) law before a Member State’s court.[8] This restrictive interpretation of Article 5(3) of the Lugano Convention is in line with the case law of the CJEU.[9] The Court did not discuss the standing of the other claimants that joined the proceedings.

Albeit having established that only the Swiss courts are competent as to the substance of the dispute, the Brussels Court decided to grant Striani the requested provisional measure, namely blocking UEFA from implementing the next phase of the FFP implementation (i.e. the reduction of the so-called “acceptable deviation” from EUR 45m to 30m). In a surprising move, the Court invoked Article 31 of the Lugano Convention for this purpose, which stipulates that:

“Application may be made to the courts of a State bound by (the Lugano) Convention for such provisional, including protective, measures as may be available under the law of that State, even if, under this Convention, the courts of another State bound by this Convention have jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter”.

The Court did not indicate why the urgency of the situation or the need to safeguard the legal and factual situation of Striani warranted this provisional measure (whose geographical reach is limited to the Belgian territory).[10] Instead, the Court decided to make a preliminary reference to the CJEU to reach a decision on the validity of the prescribed measure. The preliminary reference, another request of Striani when initiating litigation, essentially asks whether the FFP break-even requirement is compatible with Articles 63, 45, 56, 101 and 102 TFEU.

So in the end, the Brussels Court did not send Striani home empty-handed. Yet it would seem that his victory is merely a pyrrhic one. Since UEFA decided to appeal the judgment, both the provisional measure and the preliminary reference are suspended. Hence, UEFA can proceed with the next phase of implementation of the FFP as planned. Moreover, it is unlikely that the Brussels Court of Appeal would uphold the first instance decision. First, the use of Article 31 of the Lugano Convention to trigger a preliminary reference on the substance of the case – by a court that is incompetent to deal with it - is arguably a circumvention of the requirements for international jurisdiction (and thus a perforation of the general scheme and objectives of the Lugano Convention). Second, the granting of provisional measures on the basis of Article 31 is conditional on the existence of a connecting link between the subject matter of the measure and the territorial jurisdiction of the court ordering the measure.[11] In the absence of an alternative explanation, the Court thus contradicts itself because it found that particularly close connecting factors to take jurisdiction were absent.

Back to the European Commission?

The judgment of the Brussels Court puts the European Commission in an awkward position. Evidently, the Court was incapable of adequately protecting the rights of the complainant, as the Commission had argued when rejecting his complaint.

If Striani were to re-submit his complaint, it would be difficult for the Commission to argue once again that there is insufficient Union interest to conduct an investigation. It still could argue that Striani lacks legitimate interest because he is not directly affected by the alleged infringement. The fact that the Commission ultimately refrained from using this argument the first time may prove useful if a second rejection decision would be appealed before the General Court.

In any event, an authoritative assessment of the compatibility of the FFP with EU (competition) law is unfortunately not yet on the cards. Last week UEFA soothed several embittered clubs by deciding to relax some of the FFP rules. And it would be shocking if the action brought by Paris Saint-Germain fans and – this is not a joke – the ‘Association of Angry Fans against Financial Fair Play’ before the Paris High Court would overcome the jurisdictional obstacle that caused Striani to bite the dust.

[1] See e.g. The Guardian; Daily Mail; and The Independent.

[2] Commission Regulation (EC) No 773/2004 of 7 April 2004 relating to the conduct of proceedings by the Commission pursuant to Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty [2004] OJ L 123/18, Article 5(1).

[3] The Lugano Convention unified the rules on jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters and expanded the applicability of the Brussels I regulation (Council Regulation 44/2001) to the relations between Member States of the EU on the one hand and Norway, Iceland and Switzerland on the other.

[4] See e.g. Case C-352/13, Cartel Damage Claims (CDC) Hydrogen Peroxide SA v Akzo Nobel NV and Others, ECLI:EU:C:2015:335, para. 38.

[5] Idem, para. 39; Case C-228/11, Melzer v MF Global UK Ltd., ECLI:EU:C:2013:305, para. 26.

[6] Tribunal de première instance francophone de Bruxelles, Section Civile – 2013/11524/A – pp. 18, 21-22.

[7] Tribunal de première instance francophone de Bruxelles, Section Civile – 2013/11524/A – p. 18 («Que ni les joueurs, ni les agents de joueurs se sont donc visés. Que par conséquent, le préjudice qui pourrait en subir les joueurs ne peut être qu’indirect, et celui des agents de joueurs en quelque sorte ‘doublement’ indirect»).

[8] Tribunal de première instance francophone de Bruxelles, Section Civile – 2013/11524/A – p. 18 («Que par conséquent encore, l’article 5.3 ne peut fonder la compétences des juridictions belges et qu’il faut s’en tenir à la règle générale de l’article 2.1 qui renvoie aux tribunaux de l’Etat du défendeur, soit en l’espèce les juridictions suisses, pour juger du fond de l’affaire»).

[9] See e.g. Case 220/88, Dumez France SA and Tracoba SARL v Hessische Landesbank and others, ECLI:EU:C:1990:8; Case C-228/11, Melzer v MF Global UK Ltd., ECLI:EU:C:2013:305; Case C-352/13, Cartel Damage Claims (CDC) Hydrogen Peroxide SA v Akzo Nobel NV and Others, ECLI:EU:C:2015:335. Although CJEU only gives binding advice on the Brussels Convention and Brussels I and I bis Regulations, the case law is analogously applicable to the Lugano Convention (and is also taken into consideration when applying the Lugano Convention).

[10] C-261/90, Mario Reichert, Hans-Heinz Reichert and Ingeborg Kockler v Dresdner Bank AG, para. 34 (“The expression ‘provisional, including protective, measures’ … must therefore be understood as referring to measures which, in matters within the scope of the Convention, are intended to preserve a factual or legal situation so as to safeguard rights the recognition of which is sought elsewhere from the court having jurisdiction as to the substance of the matter”); Case C-391-95, Van Uden Maritime BV, trading as Van Uden Africa Line v Kommanditgesellschaft in Firma Deco-Line and Another, ECLI:EU:C:1998:543, para. 38 (“The granting of this type of measure requires particular care on the part of the court in question and detailed knowledge of the actual circumstances in which the measures sought are to take effect”).

[11] C-391/95, Van Uden Maritime BV, trading as Van Uden Africa Line v Kommanditgesellschaft in Firma Deco-Line and Another, ECLI:EU:C:1998:543, para. 40.

Editor’s note: Daniela Heerdt is a PhD candidate at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands. Her PhD research deals with the establishment of responsibility and accountability for adverse human rights impacts of mega-sporting events, with a focus on FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games. She recently published an article in the International Sports Law Journal that discusses to what extent the revised bidding and hosting regulations by FIFA, the IOC and UEFA strengthen access to remedy for mega-sporting events-related human rights violations.

The 21^st FIFA World Cup is currently underway. Billions of people around the world follow the matches with much enthusiasm and support. For the time being, it almost seems forgotten that in the final weeks leading up to the events, critical reports on human rights issues related to the event piled up. This blog explains why addressing these issues has to start well in advance of the first ball being kicked and cannot end when the final match has been played.

The Warm-up: Preparing for the Game

Even though the recently published update by FIFA’s Human Rights Advisory Board compliments FIFA on its increased efforts for tackling human rights issues related to this year’s World Cup, it is no secret that thousands of workers were exposed to severe human rights violations while working on World Cup construction sites in Russia.[1] Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) extensively reported on the structural exploitation that workers were facing, including unsafe working conditions leading to numerous injuries and the death of 17 workers, forced illegal work due to lack of employment contracts, and cases of non-payment or serious delays in payment of wages.  Those workers that dared to file a complaint were threatened with retaliation and non-payment of wages.[2] Furthermore, journalists and human rights advocates that tried to report on these cases have been intimidated, denied entry into the country, or even arrested while carrying out their investigations.

Blaming the occurrence of these human rights violations on Russia being this year’s World Cup’s host would ignore the fact that these violations are recurring in the context of mega-sporting events (MSEs) like the Summer or Winter Olympic Games or the World Cup. To a certain extent, these events heighten pre-existing human rights risk in the host country and thereby increase the likelihood for violations to occur. Thus, numerous stories of exploitation of migrant workers have been documented in relation to the construction works for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Furthermore, worker’s rights are not the only rights that are at risk during the delivery of MSEs. Other common types of human rights abuses associated with hosting MSEs are cases of forced displacement, infringements of participatory rights, and infringements of freedom of expression and the right to protest.[3] Shortly before and during these events, reports on incidents of excessive use of force by local police and private security forces, as well as arbitrary arrest and criminalization of homeless people and street children are also commonplace.[4]

The First Half: Establishing Responsibility

The key challenge in addressing these cases is to identify the actor and actions responsible for these harmful outcomes. However, MSEs like the FIFA World Cup are jointly organized and staged by a mix of public, private, national, and international actors. International sports bodies, like FIFA or the International Olympic Committee (IOC), set the terms and conditions under which these events can be hosted. Host countries agree to these conditions by submitting government guarantees and declarations and by adopting special event-related legislation. Furthermore, local and regional authorities issue permits and give orders to enable and facilitate event-related operations. The local organizing committees are responsible for living up to the conditions set by the sports bodies and for hiring the necessary contractors. These range from local to international firms, from city planners and logistic experts, to food suppliers and construction firms.[5] Further companies that profit from the MSE-business are international broadcasting firms and recruitment agencies. The financing of these events is secured through national and international corporate sponsors, such as McDonald’s and Budweiser for this year’s FIFA World Cup.[6]

The intuitive thing to do from a human rights perspective would be to call upon the responsibility of Russia as the host country to address these abuses, since states are not only responsible for respecting, protecting and fulfilling human rights but also for preventing third parties from abusing human rights on their territory. However, this would ignore the real issue at stake: the fact that MSE-related human rights abuses are the result of complex collaboration between multiple actors involved in delivering these events. In the case of exploitation of workers on World Cup construction sites in Russia, construction companies contribute by imposing abusive employment conditions; recruitment agencies by recruiting the workers under false promises; the state by failing to protect the workers and potentially even facilitating certain practices through its event-related policies; FIFA by requiring a certain number and standard of stadiums for the event; and finally also the sponsors by providing the necessary finances.

This rather simplified identification of the various contributing actors only presents a broad indication of how they contribute to these violations and share responsibility. The problem is that the entanglement of actors and their operations creates highly complex governance structures. In order to identify those actors responsible for the violations, victims first have to untangle these structures and retrace the chain of decisions taken, permits issued, orders given, and actions taken. Even if that succeeds, the key challenges are to identify which of the contributing acts would give rise to legal responsibility and to establish responsibility for those actors that have no direct obligations under international human rights law.

The Second Half:  Establishing Accountability

The entanglement of actors and their contributions does not only impede the identification of the responsible actors but also the identification of adequate accountability mechanisms. The business and human rights field knows a broad spectrum of mechanisms ranging from judicial to non-judicial, and from state-based to operational level mechanisms. Up to this point, the few attempts to hold certain actors accountable for MSE-related human rights violations either have been unsuccessful or only addressed a fraction of the actors or types of violations involved. For example, FIFA’s responsibility for World Cup-related human rights abuses has been the subject of a court case in Switzerland and two specific instances dealt with by the Swiss National Contact Point (NCP). The court in Zürich dismissed the case with unusual speed on mainly practical grounds (a more detailed discussion of the judgement can be found here).[7] The mediation procedure at the Swiss NCP led to the creation of a monitoring system for decent work and safety in the workplace for migrant construction workers in Qatar[8], but their living standards and the abuses of recruitment agencies were not addressed.

What these attempts highlight is that the main shortcomings of available mechanisms amount to a lack of access to these mechanisms for affected groups and individuals and a lack of human rights receptivity of existing mechanisms. In light of these shortcomings, new mechanisms are currently being developed and existing mechanisms are being tested in the MSE and human rights context. Just in time for the start of the World Cup, FIFA launched its new complaint mechanism for human rights defenders, which provides human rights defenders and media representatives with an avenue for complaints for situations “in which they consider that their rights have been unduly restricted when conducting work in relation to FIFA’s activities”.[9] Via an online platform, human rights defenders, journalists and other media representatives can submit a complaint and FIFA commits to ensure that it will apply an “appropriate follow-up processes” to it.[10] FIFA itself is supposed to assess these complaints and seek cooperation with third parties that are involved in the matter and relevant institutions that can support the complainant.[11] With regard to testing existing mechanisms, the possibilities for using arbitration as means to address MSE-related human rights issues opened up with the revised bidding and hosting regulations of FIFA and the IOC. Both entail provisions for human rights protection and arbitration clauses, referring to the Court of Arbitration for Sports, for challenging the performance of the host-city or -country under any of the provisions.

The Overtime: The Winner Takes its Share

One way of interpreting these recent efforts of international sports bodies to increase awareness and respect for human rights protection in connection with their events is to argue that they are increasingly becoming aware of their share of responsibility and accountability. Indeed, the increased awareness of adverse human rights impacts of MSEs triggered a number of initiatives that aim at raising human rights standards in the MSE business. In 2016, the MSE platform for human rights has been created, which is a multi-stakeholder coalition consisting of international and intergovernmental organisations, governments, sports governing bodies, athletes, unions, sponsors, broadcasters, and civil society groups, who are committed to take joint action to protect human rights throughout the MSE lifecycle. Recently, this multi-stakeholder initiative created the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, which is an independent center that connects stakeholders and affected groups to share knowledge, build capacity, and strengthen accountability for adverse human rights impacts of sports more generally. Concrete event-related examples of initiatives exist as well. In the run-up to this year’s World Cup, FIFA, Russian authorities and representatives of trade unions took a joint effort to set up a monitoring program for labour conditions on World Cup construction sites. Similar processes led to the establishment of a worker welfare monitoring system for workers on World Cup construction sites in Qatar.

Nevertheless, significant challenges remain in relation to concrete cases of MSE-related human rights abuses and it is important that these efforts do not fade after the final match has been played. MSE-related human rights violations do not automatically stop when the event is over. In some cases, for instance cases of forced evictions, violations continue as long as victims have not been compensated adequately. These challenges do not make it a hopeless endeavour, but they highlight that more work and change is needed before responsibility for MSE-related human rights violations can be established. Especially, most of the developments and efforts of sports governing bodies are rather recent and only apply to events that will take place in the future. Hence, it remains to be seen whether the revised bidding regulations can ensure that future World Cups will have a more positive human rights legacy and eventually avoid adverse human rights impacts altogether.

[1] Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, ‘Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup’ <https://business-humanrights.org/en/russia-2018-fifa-world-cup> accessed 14 February 2018.

[2] ibid 27.

[3] Megan Corrarino, ‘“Law Exclusion Zones”: Mega-Events as Sites of Procedural and Substantive Human Rights Violations’ (2014) 17 Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 180.

[4] Lucy Amis and John Morrison, ‘Mega-Sporting Events and Human Rights—A Time for More Teamwork?’ (2017) 2 Business and Human Rights Journal 135, 137.

[5] For a more elaborate overview of actors, see Amis and Morrison (n 5) at 136.

[6] Fédération Internationale de Football Association, ‘2018 FIFA World Cup Russia^TM - FIFA Partners’ (FIFA.com, 2017) <http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organisation/partners/index.html> accessed 15 February 2018.

[7] FNV, Bangladeshi Free Trade Union Congress, BWI & Nadim Shariful Alam v FIFA Handelsgericht Kanton Zürich (3 January 2017).

[8] Specific Instance regarding the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) submitted by the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) - Final Statement Swiss National Contact Point (2 May 2017).

[9] FIFA, ‘FIFA Statement on Human Rights Defenders and Media Representatives’ (2018) 4, para 14 <https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/ejf1ecdku14lm2v9zc03.pdf> accessed 12 June 2018.

[10] ibid.

[11] ibid 5, para 15.