Asser International Sports Law Blog

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

The end of governance reforms at FIFA?

The main sports governance story that surfaced in the press (see here and here) during the last month is related to significant personal changes made by the FIFA Council within the organization’s institutional structure. In particular, the FIFA Council dismissed the heads of the investigatory (Mr Cornel Borbély) and adjudicatory (Mr Hans-Joachim Eckert) chambers of the Independent Ethics Committee, as well as the Head (Mr Miguel Maduro) of the Governance and Review Committee. The decision to remove Mr Maduro was taken arguably in response to his active role in barring Mr Vitaly Mutko, a Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, from sitting on the FIFA Council due to an imminent conflict of interests. These events constitute a major setback to governance reforms initiated by the football’s world governing body in 2015. For a more detailed insight into the governance reforms at FIFA, we invite you to read the recent blog written by our senior researcher Mr Antoine Duval.

The CAS award in Real Madrid CF v. FIFA

At the end of the month, the CAS finally published its award delivered in the arbitration procedure between the Spanish club Real Madrid CF and FIFA regarding the transfer of minor football players. Mr Michele Bernasconi, sitting as a Sole Arbitrator, partially upheld the appeal filed by Real Madrid CF against the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee on 8 April 2016. The Sole Arbitrator reduced the ban (registering new players both on a national and international level) imposed on the Spanish club by the FIFA Appeal Committee from two to one entire transfer period. Moreover, Real Madrid CF is now obliged to pay CHF 240,000 instead of the original fine amounting to CHF 360,000. 

UEFA incorporates human rights and anti-corruption criteria into bidding requirements

UEFA has recently made available the Bid Dossier Template for the 2024 European Championship that will be held either in Germany or Turkey. Amongst other things, the two remaining candidates shall describe in their bid dossiers a global strategy for integrating the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in order to protect, respect and fulfil universal human rights, including child rights and the rights of workers. On this occasion, UEFA President Mr Aleksander Čeferin stated that ‘it was imperative […] to introduce specific articles on the respect and protection of human rights in the bidding requirements for all our competitions.’ By incorporating human rights criteria into bidding requirements, UEFA joins the International Olympic Committee and FIFA in their efforts to tackle human rights abuses associated with mega sporting events.

The return of Claudia Pechstein: Bundesverfassungsgericht edition

Claudia Pechstein is back! For those who have already forgotten the case, this is a dispute involving a German Speed Skater and Olympic gold medallist challenging the validity of a CAS award imposing a doping ban (for greater detail see our previous blogs here and here, and the article by Antoine Duval and Ben van Rompuy). Nothing less than the survival of the CAS, at least as we know it, is at stake. While Claudia Pechstein lost in front of the Bundesgerichtshof, the decision was harshly criticized (here and here) and she decided to challenge the ruling in front of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (constitutional court). Since last month, we know that the Bundesverfassungsgericht will hear and decide the claim, this as such is already a sign that the judges deem the case worthy of consideration and should be cause for concern for those wishing to keep the CAS as it currently is. The silver lining for CAS might be in the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s Solange jurisprudence, which could find a new expression in this peculiar context (as suggested here), it would preserve the CAS’s existence while forcing it to change.

Sports Law Related Decisions

• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between Arijan Ademi and UEFA
• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between IAAF and All Russia Athletics Federation & Vladimir Mokhnev
• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between Real Madrid and FIFA
• Supreme Court of Spain – Decision concerning the Spanish cyclist Roberto Heras

Official Documents and Press Releases

• CAS – CAS maintains the temporary bans imposed on six Russian athletes until 31 October 2017, at the latest
• CAS – CAS reduces the sanctions of football players Enrique Luis Triverio and Pablo Cesar Aguilar Benitez
• European Commission – State Aid: Commission approves Slovak support of EUR 36 million for the construction of the national football stadium in Bratislava
• European Commission – The Council approves the new work plan for sport
• Federal Constitutional Court of Germany – Pechstein's constitutional complaint to be heard in 2017
• FIBA – FIBA’s mid-term congress ratifies new headgear rule
• FIFA – Circular no. 1583: Amendment to Article 78 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code
• FIFA – FIFA welcomes outcome of NCP mediation process on workers’ welfare in Qatar
•  FIFA – Member associations release reports on intermediaries
• FIFA – Outcome of second meeting of Governance Committee
• FIFA – Suspension of the Malian FA lifted
•  IOC – Joint statement following the meeting of IOC President, Professor Richard McLaren and WADA President
• Tennis Integrity Unit – Junn Mitsuhashi banned for life for match-fixing offences
• UEFA – Bid Dossier Template for EURO 2024
• WADA – WADA Foundation Board takes decisive action on the Way Forward for the Agency and for Clean Sport

In the news

Doping

• Andy Brown Russia’s National Anti-Doping Plan denies institutional doping
• Andy Brown Spanish police dismantle new sports doping ring
• Michael Pavitt Russia in danger of missing Pyeongchang 2018 as International Paralympic Committee maintain suspension
• Michael Pavitt Russian race walker Trofimov handed four-year ban
  

Football

• Murad Ahmed FIFA ousts governance chief in ‘night of long knives’
• The Associated Press FIFA says blackface in Sochi parade was ‘inappropriate’
• BBC Sport Gothenburg v AIK: ‘Match-fixing attempt’ leads to Swedish fixture postponement
• Simon Bradley FIFA chief Infantino seeks ‘absolute power’ after ousting ethics heads
• Children Win UEFA incorporates human rights and anti-corruption criteria into bidding requirements
• Simon Evans FIFA’s chief ethics investigator and ethics judge replaced
• Graham Dunbar Two more members leave FIFA governance panel
• Nizaar Kinsella The laws of the transfer market could be rewritten with landmark court case in Italy
• James Lynch FIFA’s chance to show they put people ahead of money is now
•  Francine McKenna Will PwC throw the red card on its Swiss firm over FIFA
• Liam Morgan Palestine threaten to take FIFA to CAS after ‘illegal’ postponement of vote by Infantino
• Tariq Panja and Gaspard Sebag Soccer star homes raided in money-laundering investigation

Other

• Amnesty International Qatar: Abuse of migrant workers remains widespread as World Cup stadium hosts first match
• Graham Dunbar Swim body monitoring VP’s alleged role in FIFA bribery case
• Daniel Etchells American tennis player Kryvonos given 10-year ban for match-fixing
• Richard Martin Cycling: Authorities ordered to pay Heras compensation after appeal fails
• Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff Los Angeles residents start to organize against the Olympic bid

Academic Materials

• Mark James Sports Law 3^rd edition
• Nancy Leong Against Women’s Sports

Blogs

Asser International Sports Law Blog

• Antoine Duval The Reform of FIFA: Plus ça change, moins ça change?
• Serhat Yilmaz and Antoine Duval What Pogba’s transfer tells us about the (de)regulation of intermediaries in football
• Branislav Hock Nudging, not crushing, private orders: Private ordering in sports and the role of States
• Saverio Spera Exploring the Validity of Unilateral Extension Options in Football – Part 2: The view of the DRC and the CAS

Law in Sport

• Phil Bonner Are England’s current home grown player requirements sufficient to produce an elite national team?
• William Clerk The rebalancing of power: The need for greater transparency in sports tribunals
• Daniel Geey What a hard ‘red, white and blue’ Brexit may mean for domestic football
• Philip Hutchinson and Tiran Gunawardena Betting in football: Was the FA’s decision on Joey Barton a fair one?
• Stephen Ridgway The 4 key issues facing sports media rights lawyers in 2017: From Head Counsel, Sky Sports
• Lucien Valloni and Stéphanie Oneyser Player contracts: How contractual stability can override a liquidated damages clause
  

Others

• Andy Brown Pressure builds to secure fair athlete rights and representation
• Matt Hart ‘This does not sound legal’: Inside Nike’s Oregon project
• Bonita Mersiades The past is not another country for FIFA
• Léonard Stoyanov Switzerland to become more attractive for international arbitration

Upcoming Events

• 29-30 June – Sport & EU 12^th Annual Conference, Molde University College, Molde, Norway
• 31 August-1 September – EU Sports Law and Policy Summer School, Business and Law Building, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, the United Kingdom
• 26-27 October – ISLJ Annual Conference on International Sports Law, T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague, the Netherlands (Registration is now open here!)
• 26-30 November – Play the Game 2017: Riding Waves of Change, Eindhoven, the Netherlands