On 26 and 27 October 2023, the Asser Institute in The Hague will host the 2023 edition of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference. The ISLJ is the leading academic journal in transnational sports law and governance and is proud to provide a platform for transnational scholarly exchanges on the state of the field. The conference will address a number of complex issues and disputes at the top of the transnational sports law agenda. In particular, we will zoom in on three main topics:

How football governance is (re)shaped by EU law

Since the Bosman ruling of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) in 1995, it has been obvious to football fans around the world that the European Union (EU) has a considerable influence on the governance and regulation of professional football. This year, 2023, provides us a striking reminder of this fact with (at least) two fundamental judgments of the Grand Chamber of the CJEU expected in the Superleague case and the UEFA’s home-grown players rule. Additionally, two further cases, which are challenging FIFA’s transfer system and its agent regulations, remain pending before the Luxembourg court. We will be looking closely at this relationship between EU law and the governance football through two panels (featuring senior and junior researchers) and a keynote lecture delivered by one of the finest observers of this encounter: Prof. Stephen Weatherill (Oxford University).

Autonomy and neutrality in the transnational governance of sports 

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has postponed (once again) the end of history and revived within the Olympic Movement fundamental debates dating back to the Cold War and South-African Apartheid. Can the Olympic Movement stay neutral in the face of a clear violation of international law by Russia and of war crimes being committed by its armed forces? What should the consequences be in terms of the participation of Russian athletes and teams in international sporting competitions? If they are allowed to participate, under what conditions should they be competing? All these questions are ultimately connected to the definition and practice of the autonomy and neutrality of sport vis-a-vis international law and politics and will be at the heart of the another set of presentations at the ISLJ conference and a digital bridge with the Symposium on Sport & Neutrality organised in Lillehammer by the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences.

The transnational regulation of gender by sports governing bodies

Our third focus area for this year’s conference will be the regulation and governance of gender boundaries by SGBs. The recent and ground-breaking decision of the European Court of Human Rights in the Semenya case crystallises the contemporary importance of questions related to the division between genders in the context of international sports. Furthermore, the ongoing and heated debates on the participation of transgender athletes in female competitions are also highlighting the importance of the decisions taken by SGBs in this regard. We will be hosting a specific Panel tackling these issues and will be welcoming Prof. Silvia Camporesi (University of Vienna and King’s College London) for a keynote lecture connecting the legal debates with ethical and philosophical considerations.

More information and registration HERE

Download the full programme

Online participation available

Following the success of last year's webinar option, we are once again allowing online participation to the conference at an affordable price. Thus, we hope to internationalise and diversify our audience and to reach people who are not in a position to travel to The Hague.

We look forward to welcoming you in person in The Hague or digitally to this new iteration of the ISLJ conference.

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

Challenged membership put a lot of emphasis on football federations in May. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”) has rendered an award, on 27 April 2016, ordering the FIFA Council to submit the application of the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) for FIFA membership to the FIFA Congress (the body authorised to admit new members to FIFA). The GFA has sought since 1999 to become a member of UEFA and FIFA. In May 2013, it became a member of the UEFA and went on to seek membership of FIFA. The latter refused to submit the application to its Congress as the conditions for it were (allegedly) not met. The GFA filed an appeal to this decision to CAS which also ordered that the FIFA Congress take all necessary measures to admit the GFA as a full member of FIFA as soon as possible and within the limits of the FIFA Statutes, as it does not have the power to directly award it with FIFA membership. FIFA discussed the matter during its 66^th Congress on 12&13 May and finally granted it with  membership, along with Kosovo. Gibraltar had to face an opposition from Spain due to its long-standing dispute over the status of its territory. On another front, following the decision of the UEFA Congress on May 3 to integrate the football federation of Kosovo, the Football Association of Serbia (FSS) has filed an appeal with CAS against the Kosovar membership. UEFA is already looking to integrate Gibraltar and Kosovo to its 2018 World Cup qualification tournament. Kosovo is a self-proclaimed state and not a member of the United Nations. Its national Olympic committee became a full member of the International Olympic Committee in 2014 and is recognized by a number of international sports federations.

The ongoing legal battle between FIBA/FIBA Europe and Euroleague Commercial Assets (“ECA”) is firing around Europe. This time, the Spanish Higher Council for Sports (“Consejo Superior de Deportes” – “CSD”) annulled the agreement between the Spanish basketball league (“ACB”) and the Euroleague because it breaches the rules of the Spanish national basketball federation (“FEB”). Such an agreement is an infringement of the federation jurisdiction to decide on the participation of Spanish basketball clubs to international competitions. The Spanish national team was under the threat of being withdrawing of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the 2017 EuroBasket by the international federation (“FIBA”) and the European federation (“FIBA Europe”) because of the participation of Spanish professional basketball clubs to the Euroleague. FIBA is battling with Euroleague to impose its own European competition, the Basketball Champions League (recent update on the ongoing disagreements between the two can be found here).

The Spanish competition authority (“CNMC”) published its report on the audiovisual rights’ selling conditions for the Spanish football first and second leagues (“La Liga” and “Segunda División”) and national cup (“Copa del Rey”) until 2019. In April 2015, joint selling of the national football media rights has been imposed in Spain. The Spanish National League has to seek the advice of the competition authority previous to its tender. The main observations of the CNMC is that the penultimate and ultimate La Liga matches day should be broadcast on free-to-air TV. Also, the possibility for pay-TV broadcasters to buy more Copa del Rey matches could be anti-competitive.

Case law

Michel Platini’s suspension from all football-related activities at both national and international level was lowered by the CAS  from six to four years. The former UEFA President was first sentenced with an eight years ban by the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee for several breaches of the FIFA Ethics Code. This sanction was later reduced to a six years suspension by the FIFA Appeal Committee. Michel Platini filed his appeal at CAS which rendered its decision on May, 9. CAS concluded that the employment contract between FIFA and Michel Platini was valid, however, the alleged unpaid part of his salary (CHF 2 millions) was not legitimate and, as such, was an undue advantage in breach of Article 20 of the FIFA Code of Ethics. The arbitral panel also concluded on a conflict of interest in breach of article 19 of the same code. However, CAS only retained these two breaches and did not found him guilty of the others, as a consequence, its six-year suspension was reduced to four years. In particular, CAS highlighted the fact that FIFA knew about this payment in 2011 and only started its investigations in 2015. Michel Platini resigned from the UEFA presidency and announced his intention to appeal the award in front of the Swiss Federal Tribunal. 

CAS released its award on the appeal brought by the Croatian international water polo player Niksa Dobud against FINA Doping panel decision which sanctioned him for failure to submit to a doping test. He was previously sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility, the disqualification of the results obtained after 21 March 2015, the date of the attempt to test him and the forfeit of any medals, points and prizes achieved from that date. The panel found him guilty of evading a doping test and confirmed FINA decision.

Official Documents and Press Releases 

• EU parliamentary question on possible state aid case on the transfer of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid financed by bailed-out banks

EU parliamentary question on monitoring Hungary’s tax benefit scheme under EU state aids rules

Council of Europe Convention on an integrated safety, security and service approach at football matches and other sports events

UK Gambling Commission’s new rules to tackle crime linked to gambling

WADA press release on allegations of systematic Russian Doping in Sochi 2014

WADA Terms of Reference on Independent Investigation into the Sochi Allegations

WADA suspends the accreditation of the Bloemfontein Laboratory

Dutch football federation relegates FC Twente over financial problems linked to TPO

IOC reanalysis reveals banned substances in 23 “a” samples from London 2012

FIFA’s Deputy Secretary General Markus Kattner dismissed with immediate effect

Swiss Federal Tribunal judgment on "pathological" arbitration clauses & waiver of state courts' jurisdiction

In the news

Olympics

• Jason Blevins - Steamboat Olympian Justin Reiter abandoning lawsuit against IOC

Nick Butler - Russian athletics ban must remain for Rio 2016 if sport is really serious about ending doping

Competition Policy International - US: Judge dismisses antitrust suit filed by Olympic runner

Lynne Cox - Olympians Shouldn’t Swim Through Sewage

Paul Dimeo - Why Banning Kenya From Rio Presents an Olympian Dilemma

Interfax - ARD to show one more film on doping in Russian sport in early June

Justin McCurry, Owen Gibson - Tokyo Olympics: Japan to 'fully cooperate' with suspicious payments inquiry

Rebecca R. Ruiz - Justice Department Opens Investigation Into Russian Doping Scandal

Rebecca R. Ruiz - Michael Schwirtz, Russian Insider Says State-Run Doping Fueled Olympic Gold

Football

• AP - 10 arrests made in Italian match-fixing inquiry on Serie B

AP - Swiss extradite last of FIFA suspects Julio Rocha to U.S. in bribery case

AP - UEFA fines Liverpool, Man United for chants in Europa League

BBC - FIFA's minor transfer restrictions under BBC scrutiny

BeinSport - Lassana Diarra to pay €10million to Lokomotiv after CAS found he breached his contract

Causasport - Swiss politicians trying to put an end to FIFA's favourable tax status

Luke Edwards - Jack Colback under investigation over breach of betting rules

Ians - Concacaf sues ex-FIFA vice president Jack Warner

Borja García, FIFA congress in Mexico a chance to show football world it is cleaning up its act

Bram Logger, Hester den Boer, The scope of state aids to Dutch football clubs

Servan Peca, Adrià Budry Carbó - "Subprime" financing of football after the ban on TPO

Laura Saiz - FIFA’s prohibition to register minor players under fire from the Spanish government

Phil Smith - Swansea City win court battle with FC Utrecht over sale of Michel Vorm to Tottenham Hotspur

Sportcal - Agreement reached in Turkey to transfer control of Süper Lig broadcast rights to clubs

Sporza - Belgian football supporters of FC Bruges file complaint with EU Commission about state aids to KAA Ghent

Voetbal - The refusal to grant Belgian club White Star Brussels a license will be appealed in front of civil court

Academic materials

• Elena Atienza Macias, Nutritional Supplements and Doping in Sports – A Controversial Issue

Robert A. Baade and Victor A. Matheson, Going for the Gold: The Economics of the Olympics

Christian Frodl, Neuer, Hummels, Müller, Götze & Co: the legal framework governing industrial relations in German professional football

Dionne L. Koller, Putting Public Law into 'Private' Sport

Larry P. Reimer, New Liability Trends, Potential New Risk for Sports Associations in Canada

Alexander Vantyghem, National Law in International Sports Disputes

Books 

• Antoine Duval, Ben Van Rompuy (ed.), The Legacy of Bosman, Revisiting the Relationship Between EU Law and Sport

• Rosmarijn van Kleef, Liability of Football Clubs for Supporters' Misconduct 

Upcoming Events 

27 & 28 June - Sport & EU 11th annual conference, Institute for European Studies, CEU-San Pablo University, Madrid, Spain 

28 June – LawInSport Networking Drinks, London, UK

6 July - Asser International Sports Law Lecture and Book Launch: Antidoping in the wake of the meldonium cases: How to balance scientific complexity and legal fairness. By Marjolaine Viret, Asser Institute, The Hague, The Netherlands

19 – 21 July - Executive Programme in International Sports Law, Sports Law and Policy Centre, Ravello, Italy

2 & 3 September - International Sport Arbitration 6th Conference CAS & SAV, The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the Swiss Bar Association (SAV / FSA) and the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA), Lausanne Switzerland

16 September - The future of the ‘legal autonomy’ of sport, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK