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only in September this year, it is now clear that, be it either Los Angeles or Paris (as Budapest has recently withdrawn its bid), it will have to abide by an additional set of human rights obligations.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.

More...

In April 2014, the Swedish Gambling Authority (Lotteriinspektionen) warned the organisers of the Stockholm Marathon that it would impose a fine of SEK 2 million (ca. € 221.000) for its sponsorship agreement with online betting operator Unibet. The Authority found that the sponsorship agreement violates §38 of the Swedish Lotteries Act, which prohibits the promotion of gambling services that are not authorized in Sweden.[1] The organisers, however, refused to withdraw Unibet as its sponsor and prominently displayed the Unibet logo at the event, which took place on 31 May 2014. As a result, the organisers of the Stockholm Marathon now face legal action before the Swedish administrative courts.

Source: ASICS Stockholm Marathon 2014

As this case and many others demonstrate, sports organisers, clubs, and individual athletes are insufficiently aware of the challenges that national gambling advertising regulations create for entering into sponsorship deals with gambling operators. But don’t worry; we've got you covered.

National gambling advertising regulations

In the EU, 28 divergent regulatory frameworks govern the advertising of gambling services through e.g. sponsorship agreements between sports organisers and gambling operators.

A first category of Member States strictly prohibits any gambling advertising (Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania). Sometimes the regulatory frameworks do include a number of notable exceptions, however. In Estonia and Lithuania, for instance, the advertising ban does not apply if only the name of the operator or its logo is used. This creates a legal loophole for e.g. t-shirt sponsorship deals.

A second category of Member States only prohibits the advertising and/or promotion of unauthorized gambling services (22 Member States). It follows that at least one gambling operator, in many cases the (state-owned) operator who retains a monopoly position, is allowed to advertise its services. Yet even when authorized operators are legally entitled to advertise their services, national gambling advertising regulations may impose certain qualitative (e.g. advertising cannot encourage excessive or uncontrolled gambling) and quantitative restrictions (e.g. TV watersheds). For the most part these restrictions have little bearing on sponsorship. In France and Germany, however, gambling operators are not allowed to sponsor sports events involving minors.

A third category of Member States has no rules specific to gambling advertising as a result of outdated gambling legislations (Luxembourg and Ireland).

What are the pitfalls?

The lack of awareness of sports organisers, clubs, and individual athletes about national gambling advertising regulations can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that liability pitfalls are often hidden.

First, the provisions on advertising in the national gambling regulatory frameworks are frequently too vague or ambiguous for practical purposes. More often than not, the regulations make no specific reference to (sports) sponsorship. Consequently, the applicability of the restrictions to sponsorship can only be derived from a broad interpretation of the definition of “advertising”.

Second, only a few national advertising regulations clarify the extent to which both parties to a sponsorship agreement, i.e. the sponsored party and the gambling operator, can be found liable for breaching the regulations. Only in Denmark and the UK, the relevant rules make it explicit that responsibility also falls on the sponsored parties.

Third, inconsistencies in the enforcement of the advertising regulations make it even more difficult to anticipate the costs of non-compliance. In many instances, the competences are spread over various authorities (gambling regulators, advertising authorities, consumer protection authorities, police, etc.), which diffuses their responsibilities. Moreover, Member States frequently point to the fact that it is difficult to tackle advertising by foreign, unauthorized online betting operators.

Yet, as the Swedish case illustrates, there are good reasons not to underestimate the risks.

Typically an infringement of the prohibition to advertise unauthorized gambling services is considered an administrative offence and will therefore be sanctioned with a fine (which can be substantial, up to € 100.000 or even € 1 million). In various Member States, the sponsored party may even risk criminal prosecution (e.g. in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, and the UK).

International sports events versus patchwork of national regulations

The potential for conflicting national rules causes even more difficulties for clubs or individual athletes participating in cross-border sports events. By way of illustration, in 2007, the Bavarian authorities (Germany) imposed a fine of € 100.000 on AC Milan for wearing shirts with the name of an authorized operator (Bwin) in a Champions League game against Bayern München. The obvious anomaly is that German sports fans are able to watch home matches of AC Milan and Serie A on television and would therefore already be accustomed to watch the team play with its normal shirt sponsor.

As EU law currently stands, however, gambling operators and sponsored parties are necessarily confronted with the regulatory burden to comply with 28 different legal requirements. The European Court of Justice has repeatedly held that gambling legislation is one of the areas in which significant moral, religious, and cultural differences exist between Member States. In the absence of harmonization in this field, it is therefore for each Member State to determine the objectives of their policy on gambling and to define, in accordance with its own scale and values, what is required to protect the interests in question.^{^[2]}The fact that one Member State applies stricter rules, such as a general prohibition of gambling advertising, than others does not in itself affect that assessment.[3]

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that gambling operators are increasingly sponsoring international sports events. For instance, according to the regulations of the European Handball Federation (EHF), every delegation participating in the EHF Champions League must comply with the exclusive sponsorship arrangements of the sports organiser.^{^[4]} For many years the online gambling operator, Bet-at-home, has been one of the main sponsors of the EHF Champions League. The sponsorship deal allows the operator to advertise in all handball arenas in which Champions League games are held. When hosting qualification matches during the 2010-2011 Champions League season, the Polish Handball club Vive Kielce faced a serious dilemma. It had to choose whether to have the advertisements removed, which would mean elimination from the tournament,^{^[5]} or to commit an offence sanctioned by the Polish Gaming Law. The club decided to adhere to the regulations of the EHF and was subsequently sanctioned.^{^[6]}

Further attention should therefore be paid to the use of technological tools that may offer pragmatic solutions in these cases (e.g. the use of virtual advertising). In any event, if a sports organiser induces participants in their events to infringe national gambling advertising rules, they should arguably be found liable and not the participant that is caught in a catch-22 situation.

For a detailed overview of the national gambling advertising regulations and their relationship to sports sponsorship, check out our latest EC Study on Sports Organisers’ Rights in the EU, available at http://ec.europa.eu/sport/news/2014/study-on-sport-organisers-rights_en.htm.

[1] http://www.lotteriinspektionen.se/sv/Press/Pressmeddelanden/Stockholm-Marathons-sponsorsavtal-kan-bryta-mot-svensk-lagstiftning/

[2] See e.g. C-34/79 Henn and Darby (1979) ECR 3795, para. 15; C-275/92 Schindler (1994) ECR I-1039, para. 32; C- 268/99 Jany and others (2001) ECR I-8615, para. 56, 90.

[3] EU law, however, precludes national advertising regulations according to which unauthorized gambling services organised in that Member State would be treated differently than unauthorized gambling services organised abroad. See e.g. Joined Cases C-447/08 and 448/08, Criminal proceedings against Otto Sjöberg and Anders Gerdin (2010) ECR I-6921.

[4] European Handball Federation, EURO Regulations applicable as from November 1, 2010, Article 22.

[5] European Handball Federation, Legal Regulations, Article 14.

[6]http://pilka-reczna.przegladsportowy.pl/Pilka-reczna-Vive-kontra-Izba-Celna-Poszlo-o-reklamy,artykul,117769,1,284.html

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the

The Olympic Games and Human Rights – Part II: Human Rights Obligations Added to the Host City Contract: Turning Point or Empty Promise? – By Tomáš Grell

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

Exploring the Validity of Unilateral Extension Options in Football – Part 2: The view of the DRC and the CAS. By Saverio Spera

Nudging, not crushing, private orders - Private Ordering in Sports and the Role of States - By Branislav Hock

What Pogba's transfer tells us about the (de)regulation of intermediaries in football. By Serhat Yilmaz & Antoine Duval

International and European Sports Law – Monthly Report – April 2017. By Tomáš Grell

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

RFC Seraing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport: How FIFA’s TPO ban Survived (Again) EU Law Scrutiny

The Validity of Unilateral Extension Options in Football – Part 1: A European Legal Mess. By Saverio Spera

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

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the

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