Call for papers: Annual International Sports Law Conference of the International Sports Law Journal
Asser Institute, The Hague
25 and 26 October 2018
The editorial board of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) is inviting you to submit abstracts for its second ISLJ Annual Conference on International Sports Law, which will take place on 25 and 26 October at the Asser Institute in The Hague. The ISLJ published by Springer in collaboration with Asser Press is the leading academic publication in the field of international sports law. Its readership includes academics and many practitioners active in the field. This call is open to researchers as well as practitioners.
We are also delighted to announce that Prof. Franck Latty (Université Paris Nanterre), Prof. Margareta Baddeley (Université de Genève), and Silvia Schenk (member of FIFA’s Human Rights Advisory Board) have confirmed their participation as keynote speakers.
Abstracts could, for example, tackle questions linked to the following international sports law subjects:
- The interaction between EU law and sport
- Antitrust and sports regulation
- International sports arbitration (CAS, BAT, etc.)
- The functioning of the world anti-doping system (WADA, WADC, etc.)
- The global governance of sports
- The regulation of mega sporting events (Olympics, FIFA World Cup, etc.)
- The transnational regulation of football (e.g. the operation of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players or the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations)
- The global fight against corruption in sport
- Comparative sports law
- Human rights in sport
Please send your abstract (no more than 300 words) and CV no later than 30 April 2018 to a.duval@asser.nl. Selected speakers will be informed by 15 May.
The selected participants will be expected to submit a draft paper by 1 September 2018. All papers presented at the conference are eligible for publication in a special edition of the ISLJ. To be considered for inclusion in the conference edition of the journal, the final draft must be submitted for review by 15 December 2018. Submissions after this date will be considered for publication in later editions of the Journal.
The Asser Institute will cover one night accommodation for the speakers and will provide a limited amount of travel grants (max. 300€). If you wish to be considered for a grant please justify your request in your submission.
Editor’s Note: Etienne
Gard graduated from the University of Zurich and from King's College London. He
currently manages a project in the field of digitalization with Bratschi Ltd.,
a major Swiss law firm where he did his traineeship with a focus in
international commercial arbitration.
1. Prelude
On the
10th of June, 1958, the Convention on the Recognition and
Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, widely known as the “New York
Convention”, was signed in New York by 10 countries.[1] This rather shy figure progressively grew over the decades to now
reach 157 signatory countries, turning the New York Convention into the global
recognition and enforcement instrument it is today. As V.V. Veeder’s puts it, “One English law lord is said to have said, extra judicially, that the
New York Convention is both the Best Thing since sliced bread and also whatever
was the Best Thing before sliced bread replaced it as the Best Thing.”[2]
However,
among the overall appraisal regarding the New York Convention, some criticisms
have been expressed. For instance, some states use their public policy rather
as a pretext not to enforce an award than an actual ground for refusal.[3] A further issue is the
recurring bias in favor of local companies.[4] Additionally, recognition and enforcement procedures in application
of the New York Convention take place in front of State authorities, for the
most part in front of courts of law, according to national proceeding rules.
This usually leads to the retaining of a local law firm, the translation of
several documents, written submissions and one, if not several hearings. Hence,
the efficiency of the New York Convention as a recognition and enforcement
mechanism comes to the expense of both money and time of both parties of the
arbitral procedure.
In
contrast with the field of commercial arbitration, where the New York
Convention is often considered the only viable option in order to enforce an
award, international football organizations, together with the Court of
Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”), offer an effective enforcement alternative. This
article aims at outlining the main features of the indirect enforcement of CAS
awards in football matters in light of a recent case. More...
Editor’s Note: Oytun
Azkanar holds an LLB degree from Anadolu University in Turkey and an LLM degree
from the University of Melbourne. He is currently
studying Sports Management at the Anadolu University.
Introduction
On 19
October 2017, the Turkish Professional Football Disciplinary Committee (Disciplinary
Committee) rendered an extraordinary decision regarding the fixing of the
game between Manisaspor and Şanlıurfaspor played on 14 May 2017. The case
concerned an alleged match-fixing agreement between Elyasa Süme (former
Gaziantepspor player), İsmail Haktan Odabaşı and Gökhan Sazdağı (Manisaspor
players). The Disciplinary Committee
acknowledged that the evidence
relevant for proving the match-fixing allegations was obtained illegally and therefore
inadmissible, and the remaining evidence was not sufficient to establish that the game
was fixed. Before discussing the allegations, it is important to note that the
decision is not only significant for Turkish football but is also crucial to the
distinction between disciplinary and criminal proceedings in sports. More...
Close to 100 participants from 37 different countries attended the first ISLJ Annual International Sports Law Conference that took place on 26-27 October 2017 in The Hague. The two-day programme featured panels on the FIFA transfer system, the labour rights and relations in sport, the protection of human rights in sport, EU law and sport, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the world anti-doping system. On top of that, a number of keynote speakers presented their views on contemporary topics and challenges in international sports law. This report provides a brief summary of the conference for both those who could not come and those who participated and would like to relive their time spent at the T.M.C. Asser Institute.More...
Editor's Note: Ryan is Assistant
Professor at Thompson Rivers University, he defended his PhD at Erasmus
University Rotterdam in December 2015. His dissertation examined human rights
violations caused by international sporting events, and how international
sporting organisations may be held accountable for these violations.
“Serious sport…is
war minus the shooting.” – George Orwell
In May 2016, the
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) admitted the Football
Federation of Kosovo (Kosovo) as a member. The voting was
close, with 28 member federations in favour, 24 opposed, and 2 whose votes were
declared invalid. The practical outcome of this decision is that Kosovo would
be able participate in the UEFA Euro championship, and that Kosovo teams could
qualify for the UEFA Champions’ League or Europa League. More...
Editor’s Note: Shervine Nafissi (@SNafissi) is a Phd Student in sports law and teaching assistant in corporate law at University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Faculty of Business and Economics (HEC).
Introduction
The factual background
The dispute concerns a TPO contract entitled “Economic Rights Participation Agreement” (hereinafter “ERPA”) concluded in 2012 between Sporting Lisbon and the investment fund Doyen Sports. The Argentine player was transferred in 2012 by Spartak Moscow to Sporting Lisbon for a transfer fee of €4 million. Actually, Sporting only paid €1 million of the fee while Doyen Sports financed the remaining €3 million. In return, the investment company became the owner of 75% of the economic rights of the player.[1] Thus, in this specific case, the Portuguese club was interested in recruiting Marcos Rojo but was unable to pay the transfer fee required by Spartak Moscow, so that they required the assistance of Doyen Sports. The latter provided them with the necessary funds to pay part of the transfer fee in exchange of an interest on the economic rights of the player.
Given that the facts and circumstances leading to the dispute, as well as the decision of the CAS, were fully described by Antoine Duval in last week’s blog of Doyen vs. Sporting, this blog will solely focus on the decision of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (“FSC”) following Sporting’s appeal against the CAS award. As a preliminary point, the role of the FSC in the appeal against CAS awards should be clarified.More...
At
the end of December 2015, the CAS decided on a very public contractual
dispute between Sporting Clube de Portugal Futebol SAD (Sporting) and
Doyen Sports Investments Limited (Doyen). The club was claiming that
Doyen’s Economic Rights Participation Agreement
(ERPA) was invalid and refused to pay Doyen’s due share on the transfer
of Marcos Rojo to Manchester United. The dispute made a lot of noise
(see the excellent coverage by Tariq Panja from Bloomberg here, here and here)
as it was the first TPO case heard by the CAS after FIFA’s ban. Yet,
and it has to be clear from the outset, the case does not affect the
legality of FIFA’s TPO ban; it concerned only the compatibility of
Doyen’s ERPA with Swiss civil law. The hearing took place in June 2015,
but the case was put under a new light by the football leaks revelations unveiled at the end of 2015 (see our blog from December 2015). Despite these revelations, the CAS award favoured Doyen, and was luckily for us quickly made available on the old football leaks website.
This blog will provide a commentary of the CAS decision. It will be
followed in the coming days by a commentary by Shervine Nafissi on the
judgment, on appeal, by the Swiss Federal Tribunal. More...
Editor’s Note: Saverio
Spera is an Italian lawyer and LL.M. graduate in International Business Law from
King’s College London. He is currently an intern at the ASSER International
Sports Law Centre.
The time
is ripe to take a closer look at the CAS and its transparency, as this is one
of the ways to ensure its public accountability and its legitimacy. From 1986
to 2013, the number of arbitrations submitted to the CAS has grown from 2 to more
than 400 a year. More specifically, the number of appeals submitted almost doubled
in less than ten years (from 175 in 2006, to 349 in 2013[1]).
Therefore, the Court can be considered the judicial apex of an emerging transnational
sports law (or lex sportiva).[2]
In turn, the increased authority and power of this institution calls for
increased transparency, in order to ensure its legitimacy.[3]
More...
Editor’s note: N. Emre Bilginoglu[1]
is a lawyer based in Istanbul. His book entitled “Arbitration
on Football Contracts” was published in 2015.
Introduction
With a total market value of approximately 911 million
EUR, the Turkish Super League ranks as one of the prominent football leagues in
Europe. Five of the eighteen teams that make up half of the total market value
are based in Istanbul, a busy megalopolis that hosts a population of fifteen
million inhabitants.[2]
As might be expected, the elevated market value brings forth a myriad of
disputes, mainly between the clubs and the players. However, other crucial actors
such as coaches and agents are also involved in some of the disputes. These
actors of the football industry are of all countries, coming from various countries
with different legal systems.
One corollary of rapid globalisation is the
development of transnational law, which is quite visible in the lex sportiva.[3]
Like foreign investors, foreign actors of the sports industry look for some legal
security before signing a contract. FIFA does protect these foreign actors in
some way, providing players and coaches legal remedies for employment-related
disputes of an international dimension. But what if the legal system of the
FIFA member association does not provide a reasonable legal remedy for its
national actors?[4]
More...