Since 2022, the T.M.C. Asser Instituut, in collaboration with the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, is organising the first yearly summer course on the intersection of sport and human rights. This 4th edition brings together scholars specialised in the intersection between sport and human rights with professionals working in international sport to ensure respect for human rights. We will explore contemporary human rights challenges in sports, such as the protections of human rights at mega-sporting events, access to remedy in human rights cases within the world of sport, the intersection between human rights and gender rights in international sporting competitions, and many more.
The programme is designed to provide both deep background knowledge and actionnable insights, which will be relevant to a range of participants committed to defending human rights in international sport, including students, junior researchers, representatives of CSOs, sporting organisations, and athletes. It is structured around half days taking place online meant to accommodate as many participants as possible throughout the world.
Check out the latest draft programme below and register HERE!
In the last five years, the Striani
case has been the main sword of Damocles hanging over UEFA’s Financial Fair
Play Regulations. At the very least, the only real judicial threat they have
faced (apart from the relatively harmless challenge mounted in the Galatasaray case at the CAS). Indeed, a Belgian
player agent, Daniele Striani, represented by Bosman’s former lawyer Jean-Louis
Dupont, attempted, in various fora, to challenge the compatibility of UEFA’s
CL&FFP Regulations with EU law. Striani lodged a complaint with the
European Commission (which was quickly rejected in October 2014) and initiated a private
action for damages before the Brussels Court of First Instance. The latter
deemed itself not competent to decide on the matter, but nevertheless accepted to
order a provisory stay of the enforcement of the UEFA FFP Regulations pending a
preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the EU (see Ben van Rompuy’s
blog on the case here). The CJEU unsurprisingly rejected to enter into the matter, but UEFA and Striani
decided to appeal the first instance ruling to the Court of Appeal, which
rendered its decision on 11 April. It is unclear at this stage whether Striani
will attempt to challenge it at the Belgian Cour de Cassation (Highest Civil
Court), however this would entail considerable risks and costs and his lawyers
to date have not indicated that they would do so (see here).
While the ruling of the Court of
Appeal does not touch upon the much-discussed question of the compatibility of
UEFA’s FFP Regulations with EU law (see our many blogs on the question here, here and here), it remains an interesting decision to
discuss broader questions related to the procedural ease in challenging
regulatory decisions passed by sports governing bodies (SGBs) based in
Switzerland. Competition law constitutes the main legal tool available to
sports stakeholders looking to challenge existing regulatory arrangements from
the outside (e.g. not going through the internal political systems of the SGBs
or the CAS route). Recent cases, such as the ISU decision of the European Commission, the Pechstein case in front of the German courts or
the Rule 40 decision of the German competition
authority, have demonstrated the potency of competition law to question the
legality of the rules and decisions of the SGBs.[1]
In this regard, the decision of the Brussels Court of Appeal narrows the range
of parties allowed to challenge in European courts the SGBs’ rules and
decisions on the basis of competition law. More...