Asser International Sports Law Blog

This is a follow-up contribution to my previous blog on human rights implications of the Olympic Games published last week. Together with highlighting some of the most serious Olympic Games-related human rights abuses, the first part has outlined the key elements of the Host City Contract ('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments regulating the execution of the Olympic Games. It has also indicated that, in February 2017, the International Olympic Committee ('IOC') revised the 2024 HCC to include, inter alia, explicit human rights obligations. Without questioning the potential significance of inserting human rights obligations to the 2024 HCC, this second part will refer to a number of outstanding issues requiring clarification in order to ensure that these newly-added human rights obligations are translated from paper to actual practice. More...

Editor’s note: Tomáš Grell is currently an LL.M. student in Public International Law at Leiden University. He contributes to the work of the ASSER International Sports Law Centre as a part-time intern.

In its press release of 28 February 2017, the International Olympic Committee ('IOC') communicated that, as part of the implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020 ('Agenda 2020'), it is making specific changes to the 2024 Host City Contract with regard to human rights, anti-corruption and sustainable development. On this occasion, IOC President Thomas Bach stated that ''this latest step is another reflection of the IOC's commitment to embedding the fundamental values of Olympism in all aspects of the Olympic Games''. Although the Host City of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is scheduled to be announced only in September this year, it is now clear that, be it either Los Angeles or Paris (as Budapest has recently withdrawn its bid), it will have to abide by an additional set of human rights obligations.

This two-part blog will take a closer look at the execution of the Olympic Games from a human rights perspective. The first part will address the most serious human rights abuses that reportedly took place in connection with some of the previous editions of the Olympic Games. It will also outline the key characteristics of the Host City Contract ('HCC') as one of the main legal instruments relating to the execution of the Olympic Games. The second part will shed light on the human rights provisions that have been recently added to the 2024 HCC and it will seek to examine how, if at all, these newly-added human rights obligations could be reflected in practice. For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that the present blog will not focus on the provisions concerning anti-corruption that have been introduced to the 2024 HCC together with the abovementioned human rights provisions. More...

Editor’s Note: Saverio Spera is an Italian lawyer and LL.M. graduate in International Business Law at King’s College London. He is currently an intern at the ASSER International Sports Law Centre.

This blog is a follow up to my previous contribution on the validity of Unilateral Extension Options (hereafter UEOs) under national and European law. It focuses on the different approaches taken to UEOs by the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and the Court of arbitration for sport (CAS). While in general the DRC has adopted a strict approach towards their validity, the CAS has followed a more liberal trend. Nonetheless, the two judicial bodies share a common conclusion: UEOs are not necessarily invalid. In this second blog I will provide an overview of the similarities and differences of the two judicial bodies in tackling UEOs. More...

Editor's note: Branislav Hock (@bran_hock) is PhD Researcher at the Tilburg Law and Economics Center at Tilburg University. His areas of interests are transnational regulation of corruption, public procurement, extraterritoriality, compliance, law and economics, and private ordering. Author can be contacted via email: b.hock@uvt.nl.

This blog post is based on a paper co-authored with Suren Gomtsian, Annemarie Balvert, and Oguz Kirman.

Game-changers that lead to financial success, political revolutions, or innovation, do not come “out of the blue”; they come from a logical sequence of events supported by well-functioning institutions. Many of these game changers originate from transnational private actors—such as business and sport associations—that produce positive spillover effects on the economy. In a recent paper forthcoming in the Yale Journal of International Law, using the example of FIFA, football’s world-governing body, with co-authors Suren Gomtsian, Annemarie Balvert, and Oguz Kirman, we show that the success of private associations in creating and maintaining private legal order depends on the ability to offer better institutions than their public alternatives do. While financial scandals and other global problems that relate to the functioning of these private member associations may call for public interventions, such interventions, in most cases, should aim to improve private orders rather than replace them. More...

Editor’s note: Serhat Yilmaz (@serhat_yilmaz) is a lecturer in sports law in Loughborough University. His research focuses on the regulatory framework applicable to intermediaries. Antoine Duval (@Ant1Duval) is the head of the Asser International Sports Law Centre.

Last week, while FIFA was firing the heads of its Ethics and Governance committees, the press was overwhelmed with ‘breaking news’ on the most expensive transfer in history, the come back of Paul Pogba from Juventus F.C. to Manchester United. Indeed, Politiken (a Danish newspaper) and Mediapart (a French website specialized in investigative journalism) had jointly discovered in the seemingly endless footballleaks files that Pogba’s agent, Mino Raiola, was involved (and financially interested) with all three sides (Juventus, Manchester United and Pogba) of the transfer. In fine, Raiola earned a grand total of € 49,000,000 out of the deal, a shocking headline number almost as high as Pogba’s total salary at Manchester, without ever putting a foot on a pitch. This raised eyebrows, especially that an on-going investigation by FIFA into the transfer was mentioned, but in the media the sketching of the legal situation was very often extremely confusing and weak. Is this type of three-way representation legal under current rules? Could Mino Raiola, Manchester United, Juventus or Paul Pogba face any sanctions because of it? What does this say about the effectiveness of FIFA’s Regulations on Working with Intermediaries? All these questions deserve thorough answers in light of the publicity of this case, which we ambition to provide in this blog.More...

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.More...

Since yesterday FIFA is back in turmoil (see here and here) after the FIFA Council decided to dismiss the heads of the investigatory (Cornel Borbély) and adjudicatory (Hans-Joachim Eckert) chambers of the Independent Ethics Committee, as well as the Head (Miguel Maduro) of the Governance and Review Committee. It is a disturbing twist to a long reform process (on the early years see our blogs here and here) that was only starting to produce some tangible results. More...

Doyen (aka Doyen Sports Investment Limited) is nothing short of heroic in its fight against FIFA’s TPO ban. It has (sometimes indirectly through RFC Seraing) attacked the ban in front of the French courts, the Belgium courts, the European Commission and the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This costly, and until now fruitless, legal battle has been chronicled in numerous of our blogs (here and here). It is coordinated by Jean-Louis Dupont, a lawyer who is, to say the least, not afraid of fighting the windmills of sport’s private regulators. Yet, this time around he might have hit the limits of his stubbornness and legal ‘maestria’. As illustrated by the most recent decision of the saga, rendered in March by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a case opposing the Belgium club RFC Seraing (or Seraing) to FIFA. The arguments in favour of the ban might override those against it. At least this is the view espoused by the CAS, and until tested in front of another court (preferably the CJEU) it will remain an influential one. The French text of the CAS award has just been published and I will take the opportunity of having for once an award in my native language to offer a first assessment of the CAS’s reasoning in the case, especially with regard to its application of EU law. More...

In the football world the use of unilateral extension options (hereafter UEOs) in favour of the clubs is common practice. Clubs in Europe and, especially, South America make extensive use of this type of contractual clauses, since it gives them the exclusive possibility to prolong the employment relationship with players whose contracts are about to come to an end. This option gives to a club the right to extend the duration of a player’s contract for a certain agreed period after its initial expiry, provided that some previously negotiated conditions are met. In particular, these clauses allow clubs to sign young promising players for short-term contracts, in order to ascertain their potential, and then extend the length of their contracts.^{^[1]} Here lies the great value of UEOs for clubs: they can let the player go if he is not performing as expected, or unilaterally retain him if he is deemed valuable. Although an indisputably beneficial contractual tool for any football club, these clauses are especially useful to clubs specialized in the development of young players.^{^[2]} After the Bosman case, clubs have increasingly used these clauses in order to prevent players from leaving their clubs for free at the end of their contracts.^{^[3]} The FIFA Regulations do not contain any provisions regulating this practice, consequently the duty of clarifying the scope and validity of the options lied with the national courts, the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and the CAS. This two-part blog will attempt to provide the first general overview on the issue.^{^[4]} My first blog will be dedicated to the validity of UEOs clauses in light of national laws and of the jurisprudence of numerous European jurisdictions. In a second blog, I will review the jurisprudence of the DRC and the CAS on this matter. More...

The editorial board of the International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) is very pleased to invite you to submit abstracts for its first Annual Conference on International Sports Law. The ISLJ, published by Springer in collaboration with ASSER Press, is the leading publication in the field of international sports law. Its readership includes both academics and many practitioners active in the field. On 26-27 October 2017, the International Sports Law Centre of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the editorial board of the International Sports Law Journal will host in The Hague the first ever ISLJ Annual Conference on International Sports Law. The conference will feature panels on the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the world anti-doping system, the global governance of sports, the FIFA transfer regulations, comparative sports law, and much more.

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UEFA announced on 8 May that it had entered into Financial Fair Play settlement agreements with 10 European football clubs. Together with the four other agreements made in February 2015, this brings the total to 14 FFP settlements for 2015 and 23 since UEFA adopted modifications in its Procedural rules and allowed settlements agreements to be made between the Clubs and the Chief Investigator of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB).[1]

In the two years during which UEFA’s FFP regulations have been truly up and running we have witnessed the centrality taken by the settlement procedure in their enforcement. It is extremely rare for a club to be referred to the FFP adjudication chamber. In fact, only the case regarding Dynamo Moscow has been referred to the adjudication chamber. Thus, having a close look at the settlement practice of UEFA is crucial to gaining a good understanding of the functioning of FFP. Hence, this blog offers a detailed analysis of this year’s settlement agreements and compares them with last year’s settlements.

The two tables below provide an overview of last year’s nine settlement agreements (table 1) and this year’s settlement agreements (tables 2 and 3).

Table2014.jpg (310KB)

Table2015(1).jpg (259.6KB)

Table2015(2).jpg (228.4KB)

DIFFERENCES WITH LAST YEAR’S SETTLEMENTS

The financial contribution (fines)

In 2015, the financial “sanctions” have been much lower than last year, especially with regard to the highest penalties. In 2014, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City agreed to pay an overall of €60 million (€40 million, subject to the fulfilment of the conditions imposed by UEFA to the club). This year, the two highest financial contributions will be those of FC Internazionale (€20 million) and AS Monaco (€13 million). Moreover, the contributions imposed on FC Internazionale and AS Monaco have a conditional element: should the clubs fulfil UEFA’s requirements, they will get €14 million and €10 million returned to them respectively.

Last year, the revenues derived by the clubs from participating in European competitions were withheld by UEFA in every settlement agreement. However, this year, UEFA will withhold revenue from the UEFA competitions in only some cases, namely for FC Krasnodar, FC Lokomotiv Moscow, Besiktas, AS Roma, AS Monaco and FC Internazionale.

Moreover, another difference concerns the way the club may pay the ‘conditional amount’ provided in the settlements. Last year, the conditional amounts were “withheld and returned” to the club, provided it fulfilled the “operational and financial measures agreed with the UEFA CFCB”. This year, however, these conditional amounts “may be withheld in certain circumstances depending on the club’s compliance”. This means that there is no a priori retention of the money by UEFA that is subject to the achievement of the objectives agreed.

The deficit limits

As can be seen from the tables above, UEFA limits the total deficit that clubs are allowed to have. The clubs must comply with this UEFA obligation for one or two seasons, depending on the settlement agreement. This condition was imposed in both the 2014 and 2015 agreements. Yet, some differences arise with regard to the deficit allowed for clubs.

These differences become apparent when comparing FC Rubin Kazan (2014) with AS Roma (2015). Both clubs agreed to a three seasons duration of the settlement, a €6 million fine, a reduction of the squad (22 players for AS Roma and 21 for FC Rubin Kazan), and a limitation on the number of player registrations. However, the maximum allowed deficit for each club is different. As regards AS Roma, UEFA restricted the deficit authorized to €30 million. It should be noted that, according to UEFA’s own regulations, the maximum acceptable deviation is €30 million.[2] In other words, this is not a real sanction imposed on AS Roma, since every European club has the duty to comply with the maximum acceptable deviation rule. In its agreement with FC Rubin Kazan, on the other hand, UEFA imposed a deficit limit of €30 million for the first season and full break-even compliance for the following season. This is a harsher sanction than in the agreements found in 2015, in which a specific deficit is permitted for the second season of the settlements (see the FC Krosnodar, AS Roma, Besiktas and AS Monaco agreements).

The salary cap

This salary cap measure is regulated in Article 29(1)(g) of the Procedural Rules Governing the UEFA Club Financial Control Body. According to this provision, a salary cap is a “restriction on the number of players that a club may register for participation in UEFA competitions, including a financial limit on the overall aggregate cost of the employee benefits expenses of players registered on the A-list for the purposes of UEFA club competitions”.

In 2014, every settlement reached by the clubs with UEFA prohibited the increase in salary expenses for the first season following the agreement. In 2015, this condition was not stipulated in all of the agreements. More concretely, the agreements settled with Ruch Chorzów, Panathinaikos, Hapoel Tel Aviv, and Hull City, do not include a salary cap.

Changes have also occurred regarding the structure of the salary cap imposed. In 2014, a unitary interpretation of the salary cap provision was used by UEFA. In the case of Manchester City, for of example, UEFA stated that “employee benefit expenses cannot be increased during two financial periods”.[3]

In 2015, however, UEFA used two different ways to ‘cap’ salaries:

In the cases of the FC Rostov, CSKA Sofia and Kardemir Karabükspor settlements, it held that “the total amount of the Club’s aggregate cost of employee benefits expenses is limited”.
With regard to FC Internazionale and Besiktas, the settlements hold that “the employee benefit expenses to revenue ratio is restricted and that the amortisation and impairment of the costs of acquiring players’ registration is limited.”

The first alternative is similar to the solution adopted in 2014 to cap players’ wages. As UEFA releases only some elements of the settlements, the precise levels of the cap imposed remain unknown, as was the case last year. The mechanism used by UEFA in the case of Besiktas and FC Internazionale is different. It is based on a fixed ratio between employee benefit-expenses and the clubs revenue. The cap becomes more dynamic, as it is coupled to another variable, the revenue of the club, but also less predictable.

Is the settlement a sanction or an agreement?

According to UEFA’s regulations, the UEFA CFCB Investigatory Chamber has the power to negotiate with clubs who breached the break-even compliance requirement as defined in Articles 62 and 63 UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations. If a settlement is not reached, the CFCB Adjudicatory Chamber will unilaterally impose disciplinary sanctions to the respective clubs.

The ‘settlement procedure’ allows for a certain degree of negotiation between the parties. Settlements are likely to be in the interest of both parties. Firstly, by agreeing to UEFA’s terms, the club secures its participation in European competitions which, in many cases, are one of its main sources of revenue. Not agreeing to the terms would entail risking a much bigger sanction. Naturally, such a sanction can be appealed in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but such a procedure would be expensive, time consuming and does not guarantee a better outcome. To UEFA, a settlement is a guarantee that the case ends there, that its FFP regulations do not get challenged in front of the CAS, but also that it does not need to invest resources to fight a long and costly legal battle. Moreover, the settlement procedure provides the flexibility needed for a case-by-case approach to the sanctions.

CONCLUSION

The settlement procedure is a key element to the current implementation process of the UEFA FFP regulations. UEFA is still in the learning phase concerning FFP and the recourse to settlements is a way to provide for much needed regulatory flexibility. Even if the settlements have many advantages for all the parties involved, they also have detrimental effects. It is regrettable that they are not published in full, even if slightly redacted, so that clubs may enjoy a higher legal certainty when facing an FFP investigation. This lack of transparency makes it harder to predict and rationalize the sanctions imposed and exposes UEFA to the risk of being criticized for the arbitrariness of its settlement practice.

This year’s settlement harvest was undoubtedly more lenient than in 2014. UEFA has apparently decided to water down its FFP sanctions, maybe to make sure that FFP survives the many legal challenges ahead. The balance between under-regulation, that would render FFP toothless, and over-regulation, that would make it difficult for clubs to invest and take risks, is indeed very difficult to find. UEFA’s settlement practice is a soft way to walk this complex line.

[1] Article 14(1)(b) and Article 15 of the Procedural Rules Governing the UEFA Club Financial Control Body – Edition 2014.

[2] Article 61 UEFA Club Licensing and Financial Fair Play Regulations

[3] Decision of the Chief Investigator of the CFCB Investigatory Chamber: Settlement Agreement with Manchester City Football Club Limited (2014)

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The Olympic Games and Human Rights – Part I: Introduction to the Host City Contract – By Tomáš Grell

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The Reform of FIFA: Plus ça change, moins ça change?

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Call for papers: ISLJ Annual Conference on International Sports Law - 26-27 October 2017

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The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the

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