Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

The Russian Ballet at the CAS Ad Hoc Division in Rio - Act IV: On Bringing a sport into disrepute

Editor's note: This is the fourth part/act of our blog series on the Russian eligibility cases at the CAS ad hoc Division in Rio.


Act IV: On Bringing a sport into disrepute

Paragraph 2 of the IOC Decision: “The IFs will also have to apply their respective rules in relation to the sanctioning of entire NFs.” 

 

In paragraph 2 of its Decision, the IOC mentioned the possibility for IFs to “apply their respective rules in relation to the sanctioning of entire NF's”.This is exactly what the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) did when it decided on 29 July 2016 to exclude the whole Russian Weightlifting Federation (RWF) from the Rio Olympics for having brought the sport into disrepute. Indeed, Article 12. 4 of the IWF Anti-doping Policy, foresees that:

“If any Member federation or members or officials thereof, by reason of conduct connected with or associated with doping or anti-doping rule violations, brings the sport of weightlifting into disrepute, the IWF Executive Board may, in its discretion, take such action as it deems fit to protect the reputation and integrity of the sport.”More...



The Russian Ballet at the CAS Ad Hoc Division in Rio - Act III: On being sufficiently tested

Editor's note: This is the third part/act of our blog series on the Russian eligibility cases at the CAS ad hoc Division in Rio.


Act III: On being sufficiently tested 

Paragraph 2 of the IOC Decision: “The IFs should carry out an individual analysis of each athlete’s anti-doping record, taking into account only reliable adequate international tests, and the specificities of the athlete’s sport and its rules, in order to ensure a level playing field.”

Daniil Andienko and 16 other members of the Russian rowing team challenged the decision of the World Rowing Federation (FISA) to declare them ineligible for the Rio Olympics. The FISA Executive Committee took the decision on 24 July 2016 because they had not “undergone a minimum of three anti-doping tests analysed by a WADA accredited laboratory other than the Moscow laboratory and registered in ADAMS from 1 January 2015 for an 18 month period”.[1] In their submissions, the Russian applicants did not challenge the IOC Decision, and thus the criteria enshrined in paragraph 2, but only its application by FISA.[2] The Russian athletes argued that FISA’s decision deviated from the IOC Decision in that it was imposing as an additional requirement that rowers must “have undergone a minimum of three anti-doping tests analysed by a WADA accredited laboratory other than the Moscow laboratory and registered in ADAMS from 1 January 2015 for an 18-month period”.[3] The Panel acknowledged that “the IOC Executive Board decision does not refer explicitly to the requirement of three tests or to a period of 18 months”.[4] Nonetheless, it “finds that the Challenged Decision is in line with the criteria established by the IOC Executive Board decision”.[5] Indeed, the IOC’s Decision “provides that in order to examine whether the level playing field is affected or not (when admitting a Russian athlete to the Rio Olympic Games), the federation must look at the athlete's respective anti-doping record, i.e. examine the athlete's anti-doping tests” and that “[i]n doing so, the IOC Executive Board decision specifies that only "reliable adequate international tests" may be taken into account”.[6] In this regard, the Panel, and FISA, share the view that “a reliable adequate international test can only be assumed if the sample has been analyzed in a WADA-accredited laboratory outside Russia”.[7]More...



The Russian Ballet at the CAS Ad Hoc Division in Rio - Act II: On being implicated

Editor's note: This is the second part/act of our blog series on the Russian eligibility cases at the CAS ad hoc Division in Rio.

 

Act II: On being implicated


Paragraph 2 of the IOC Decision: The IFs to examine the information contained in the IP Report, and for such purpose seek from WADA the names of athletes and National Federations (NFs) implicated. Nobody implicated, be it an athlete, an official, or an NF, may be accepted for entry or accreditation for the Olympic Games.”

 

The second, and by far largest, wave of complaints involved Russian athletes barred from the game under paragraph 2 of the IOC Decision. None of those were successful in their appeals as the CAS sided with those IFs which took a tough stance with regard to the Russian State doping system. The first set of cases turned on the definition of the word “implicated” in the sense of paragraph 2 of the IOC Decision. In this regard, on 2 August the IOC sent a communication to the IFs aiming at providing some general guidelines. It reads as follows:

"In view of the recent appeals filed by Russian Athletes with CAS, the IOC considers it necessary to clarify the meaning of the notion "implicated" in the EB Decision.

The IOC does not consider that each athlete referred to in the McLaren Lists shall be considered per se "implicated. It is for each International federation to assess, on the basis of the information provided in the McLaren lists and the Independent Person Report, whether it is satisfied that the Athlete in question was implicated in the Russian State-controlled doping scheme.

To assist the International Federations in assessing each individual case, the IOC wishes to provide some information. In the IOC's opinion, an athlete should not be considered as "implicated" where:

·       The order was a "quarantine".

·       The McLaren List does not refer to a prohibited substance which would have given rise to an anti-doping rule violation or;

·       The McLaren List does not refer to any prohibited substance with respect to a given sample."

The CAS went on to address this question concretely in three cases analysed below. More...




The Russian Ballet at the CAS Ad Hoc Division in Rio - Act I: Saved by the Osaka Déjà-Vu

Since it was first introduced at the Atlanta Games in 1996,[1] the CAS ad hoc Division has never been as crowded as it was during this year’s Rio Olympics. This is mainly due to the Russian doping scandal, which has fuelled the CAS with Russian athletes challenging their ineligibility to compete at the Games. The CAS recently revealed that out of 28 awards rendered, 16 involved Russian athletes challenging their ineligibility. This Russian ballet is a direct result of the shocking findings of Richard McLaren’s Independent Person (IP) Report ordered by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). McLaren’s investigation demonstrated that the Russian State was coordinating a sophisticated doping system. The revelation triggered an outrage in the media and amongst other competitors. Numerous calls (especially by WADA and various National Anti-Doping Organisations) were heard urging the IOC to ban the entire Russian delegation from the Olympics. The IAAF decided to exclude the whole Russian athletics team, [2] with the exception of Darya Klishina, but, to the disappointment of many, the IOC refused to heed these calls and decided, instead, to put in place a specific procedure to assess on a case-by-case basis the eligibility of Russian athletes.

The IOC’s Decision (IOC Decision) of 24 July foresees that the International Federations (IFs) are competent to determine whether each Russian athlete put forward by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to participate in the Olympics meets a specific set of conditions. Moreover, the ROC was also barred from entering athletes who were sanctioned for doping in the past, even if they have already served their doping sanction. In the end, a majority of the Russian athletes (278 out of 389 submitted by the ROC) cleared the IOC’s bar relatively easily, but some of them did not, and many of the latter ended up fighting for their right to compete at the Rio Olympics before the CAS ad hoc Division.[3] In the following blogs, I will analyse the ten published CAS awards related to Russian athletes.[4] It is these legal fights that I suggest to chronicle in the following parts of this blog. To do so, I have divided them in five different (and analytically coherent) Acts:

International and European Sports Law – Monthly Report – August 2016. By Kester Mekenkamp.

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

For the world of Sport, the elsewhere known “sleepy month” of August turned out to be the total opposite. Having only just recuperated from this year’s Tour de France, including a spectacular uphill sprint on bicycle shoes by later ‘Yellow Jersey’ winner Chris Froome, August brought another feast of marvellous sport (and subsequent legal drama): The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.More...


Sports arbitration and EU Competition law: the Belgian competition authority enters the arena. By Marine Montejo

Editor's note: Marine Montejo is a graduate from the College of Europe in Bruges and is currently an intern at the ASSER International Sports Law Centre.

On 14 July 2016, the Belgian competition authority refused to grant provisional measures to the White Star Woluwe Football Club (“The White Star”), which would have allowed it to compete in the Belgian top football division. The club was refused a licence to compete in the above mentioned competition first by the Licences Commission of the national football federation (“Union Royale Belge des Sociétés de Foootball Association” or “URBSFA”) and then by the Belgian court of arbitration for sports (“Cour Belge d’Arbitrage pour le Sport” or “CBAS”). The White Star lodged a complaint to the national competition authority (“NCA”) and requested provisional measures. The Belgian competition authority rendered a much-overlooked decision (besides one commentary) in which it seems to accept the reviewability of an arbitral award’s conformity with EU competition law (articles 101 and 102 TFEU). More...

From Lord of the Rings to Lord of the Drinks – A legal take on the downfall of Yuri van Gelder at the Rio Olympics. By Guido Hahn (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Editor’s note: Guido graduated cum laude from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He teaches law at the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. He specializes in sports law and provides legal advice for the professional sports sector.


Introduction

This blog is a commentary on a recent case that hit like a bombshell in the Netherlands (and beyond) during the recent Olympic Games in Rio. The case concerns a Dutch athlete, Yuri van Gelder, who reached the Olympic finals in his sport, got sent home by ‘his’ NOC (NOC*NSF) after a night out in Rio and launched legal proceedings in front of a Dutch court to claim back his place in the finals. This commentary will attempt to explain the Dutch ruling and evaluate whether a different legal route would have been possible and preferable. More...


Bailing out your local football club: The Willem II and MVV State Aid decisions as blueprint for future rescue aid (Part 2)

This is part two of the blog on the Willem II and MVV State Aid decisions. Where part one served as an introduction on the two cases, part two will analyze the compatibility assessment made by the Commission in two decisions.


The compatibility of the aid to MVV and Willem II (re-)assessed

Even though it was the Netherlands’ task to invoke possible grounds of compatibility and to demonstrate that the conditions for such compatibility were met, the aid granted to both Willem II and MVV was never notified. The Netherland’s failure to fulfill its notification obligation, therefore, appears to be at odds with the Commission’s final decision to declare the aid compatible with EU law. Yet, a closer look at the Commission’s decision of 6 March 2013 to launch the formal investigation shows that the Commission was giving the Netherlands a ‘second chance’ to invoke grounds that would lead to a justification of the measures.More...


Bailing out your local football club: The Willem II and MVV State Aid decisions as blueprint for future rescue aid (Part 1)

The European Commission’s decisions of 4 July 2016 to order the recovery of the State aid granted to seven Spanish professional football clubs[1] were in a previous blog called historic. It was the first time that professional football clubs have been ordered to repay aid received from (local) public authorities. Less attention has been given to five other decisions also made public that day, which cleared support measures for five football clubs in the Netherlands. The clubs in question were PSV Eindhoven, MVV Maastricht, NEC Nijmegen, FC Den Bosch and Willem II.

Given the inherent political sensitivity of State aid recovery decisions, it is logical that the “Spanish decisions” were covered more widely than the “Dutch decisions”. Furthermore, clubs like Real Madrid and FC Barcelona automatically get more media attention than FC Den Bosch or Willem II. Yet, even though the “Dutch decisions” are of a lower profile, from an EU State aid law perspective, they are not necessarily less interesting.

A few days before entering the quiet month of August, the Commission published the non-confidential versions of its decisions concerning PSV Eindhoven, Willem II and MVV Maastricht (hereinafter: “MVV”). The swiftness of these publications is somewhat surprising, since it often takes at least three months to solve all the confidentiality issues. Nonetheless, nobody will complain (especially not me) about this opportunity to analyze in depth these new decisions. More...

Fear and Loathing in Rio de Janeiro – Displacement and the Olympics by Ryan Gauthier (Thompson Rivers University)

‎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.

Introduction

On Sunday, August 21, the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will end. The spotlight will dim not only on the athletes who return to their home countries to ply their trade in relative obscurity, but also on the country of Brazil.[1] Once the Games have ended, life will go ‘back to normal’, although for many residents of Rio de Janeiro, what is ‘normal’ is anything but. More...



Asser International Sports Law Blog | Image Rights in Professional Basketball (Part II): Lessons from the American College Athletes cases. By Thalia Diathesopoulou

Asser International Sports Law Blog

Our International Sports Law Diary
The Asser International Sports Law Centre is part of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut

Image Rights in Professional Basketball (Part II): Lessons from the American College Athletes cases. By Thalia Diathesopoulou

In the wake of the French Labour Union of Basketball (Syndicat National du Basket, SNB) image rights dispute with Euroleague and EA Games, we threw the “jump ball” to start a series on players’ image rights in international professional basketball. In our first blogpost, we discussed why image rights contracts in professional basketball became a fertile ground for disputes when it comes to the enforcement of these contracts by the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT). Indeed, we pointed out that clubs might take advantage of the BAT’s inconsistent jurisprudence to escape obligations deriving from image rights contracts.

In this second limb, we will open a second field of legal battles “around the rim”: the unauthorized use of players’ image rights by third parties. We will use as a point of reference the US College Athletes image rights cases before US Courts and we will thereby examine the legal nature of image rights and the precise circumstances in which such rights may be infringed. Then, coming back to where we started, we will discuss the French case through the lens of US case law on players’ image rights. 


Source: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/09/27/ea-sports-settles-college-likeness-case/ 


The American College Athletes image rights cases in a nutshell

The legal qualification of image rights varies in different jurisdictions. In the USA, image rights refer to the right of publicity: an intellectual property right, which gives the player an exclusive right on his image. The commercial exploitation of this image without permission constitutes an offence and practice of unfair competition.[1] Although the right of publicity is a creation of the common law not recognized under Federal law, many state courts and legislatures have embraced it.

The US legal system as a “true forerunner of marketing applied to sport”[2] considers, contrary to other legal systems, that image rights extends to the exploitation of players’ image rights linked to college championships. Indeed, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball has acquired a monopoly power in the college sports entertainment market, with broadcast and cable television serving as powerful handmaidens.[3] This financially massive industry exploits the free labour of student-athletes’ due to their so-called amateur status.[4]  In fact, as a precondition to participate in NCAA Championships, student-athletes have to sign the ‘Form 08-3a’ authorizing NCAA to use their “name and picture to generally promote NCAA championships or other NCAA events, activities or programs”.[5]

The NCAA’s exploitation of players’ image rights generates millions of dollars of profits through licensing agreements for their use in e.g. television broadcasts, advertising, DVDs or video games. The fact that student-athletes are not compensated for the use of their rights has given rise to a wave of lawsuits filed by former student athletes against the NCAA and video game makers. O’Bannon’s, Sam Keller’s and other former student athletes’ image is still making money for the NCAA through licensed merchandizing.

As a result of the NCAA’s exploitation of players’ image rights, an unprecedented legal battle started in 2009 before the Federal Courts of the US. In May 2009, Sam Keller, a former football player of the Arizona University sued NCAA and EA Games for unlawfully using his image and likeness in a video game. The case continued before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California which dismissed the appeal of EA Games on the grounds that EA was not protected by the First Amendment, which offers a shield to video games via freedom of speech. In fact, the Court concluded that the EA’s use of the player recreates him in the very setting in which he has achieved fame.[6] Similarly, in Ryan Hart’s case, a former Rutgers football player, the Federal Court of Appeals, overturning the district court’s ruling, concluded that players in video games are renditions of actual players who should be compensated.

Undoubtedly, the O’Bannon case is to be considered a milestone. It is the widest-ranging anti-trust lawsuit before US Courts with regards to college athletes’ image rights. On 21 July 2009, Ed O’Bannon, one of the most recognized collegiate basketball players of the last 30 years, along with another 19 former college athletes, filed a class action against EA Games, NCAA, and the Collegiate Licencing Company, the nation’s leading collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm, seeking compensation from the unauthorized use of their image rights. Their claim implicated two core areas of law: (1) federal antitrust law and (2) intellectual property rights law. By requiring athletes to relinquish in perpetuity their image rights through the ‘Form 08-3a’ and fixing at zero the amount of compensation athletes could receive from the share of revenues, they contended that the NCAA has restrained trade and, thus, acted in violation of the Sherman Act, i.e. federal antitrust law. The athletes that signed this form had been deprived of their right to negotiate on their own with licensing firms after leaving college. Furthermore, they argued that they had been deprived of their right of publicity and their subsequent right to the commercial exploitation of their image, name, likeness or voice.

Following a contentious five years trial proceeding and thousands of pages of filings, on 8 August 2014, the US District Judge Claudia Wilken in a 99-page decision shook the basketball world by ruling in favour of O’Bannon and the other plaintiffs.[7] The injunction issued allows college athletes to get a share of the licensing revenues via the creation of a trust fund available to them once they leave college.


The O’Bannon landmark ruling: What the French (and Europe) can learn?

The O’Bannon ruling, while under appeal, has been ground-breaking in that it questions the ‘sacrosanct’ NCAA notion of amateurism. Judge Wilken was clear: maintaining amateurism is not legitimate sufficient justification for implementing anticompetitive labour rules, which bar players from being compensated for the use of their image rights. The collapse of NCAA’s amateurism defence and the resulting establishment of an equitable bargaining relationship between student-athletes and NCAA could blow up the entire college basketball system. Nonetheless, this not the only important lesson we can derive from the O’Bannon ruling and the American cases.

The link between amateurism and image rights, which deprives student-athletes from any compensation, is a unique phenomenon of US college sports system and lies at the heart of the American cases. In Europe, as we extensively explained in our fist blogpost, some professional basketball players assign to their clubs the commercial use of their image rights and they receive an adequate compensation through an image rights contract concluded with a third party, an image rights contract. However, this sum cannot be deemed as an actual compensation for the use of their image, but rather it constitutes a part of their remuneration under the employment contract. Therefore, at the European level, the question that could be raised is whether basketball players can request further compensation, i.e. a compensation proportionate to the revenues generated by the exploitation of their image rights. In this light, the O’Bannon ruling has the potential to create an important precedent for image rights disputes in European professional basketball as well:

(1) The license agreement of image rights between players and basketball associations

The issue at heart of the O’Bannon case regarding the ownership of the student-athletes image and likeness is the NCAA ‘Form 08-3a’. By means of this form, student-athletes authorize the NCAA to use their image rights for the promotion of its activities.[8] O’Bannon strongly argued that this form is illegal for the following reasons: First and foremost, the language of Part IV, which provides that the NCAA can use their “name and picture to generally promote NCAA championships or other NCAA events, activities or programs”, is vague and ambiguous. It does not define when, where, for how long, and how the NCAA may ‘generally’ promote events or activities. Secondly, as a result of student-athletes’ amateur status, this form is signed without representation. This can be considered as exploitative, since student-athletes’ are usually unaware of the legal consequences of signing such forms. Finally, this form is illegal, because it is coerced from student-athletes in exchange for their eligibility to play in the championship. Doug Szymul, former star football player at Northwestern University puts it clearly: “I had to sign it to be able to play, so it’s not like I’m going to argue about it”.[9]

Let’s transpose these arguments to the European professional basketball world and more particularly to the potential French case at hand. In fact, in the contracts between professional basketball players and National or European Basketball Associations, there is an image rights provision according to which players or their union agree, without further compensation, to the use of players’ image rights by the Club, the National or European League.[10] In this regard, the reference to the use of players’ image rights “in any manner” is quite ambiguous.[11]

In the French case, players transfer their image rights to the French Labour Union of Basketball (SNB). But, when players sign their contract with their club, they license the use of their image rights to their Club, French Basketball League and Euroleague, without further compensation. Can this agreement be interpreted as giving carte blanche to the Clubs, National Leagues or Euroleague to use basketball players’ image rights for an indefinite time period and indefinite manner, without further compensation? Well, if we follow the reasoning used in the O’Bannon ruling, this question should be answered in the negative: players and subsequently their labour union should have a share of licensing revenues. 

(2) The ‘without further compensation’ provision

A key issue raised during the O’Bannon trial was whether image rights (as well as name and likeness rights) even exist for the purposes of licencing agreements. The NCAA argued and provided supporting evidence[12] that although image rights are included in the contractual language, in practice, during the negotiation of broadcasting or licencing deals, they are not valued separately. The contractual provisions on image rights refer only to their use in event promotions and they play no further role during the licencing dealing.

Plaintiff’s witness, Edwin Desser, who was formerly the NBA head of broadcasting, disputed this argument by stating the ‘obvious’ from a commercial point of view: “ it’s simply impossible to conceive of sports telecast without being able to show the images of the participants”.[13] In other words, players’ image rights are a quid pro quo requirement of every broadcasting or licencing agreement.

This argument, which stems from commercial law practice, could serve as the perfect pick-n-roll in other image rights cases, including the French case. True, when, for example, EA Games negotiates with Euroleague for the conclusion of a licencing agreement, image rights are not separately calculated. However, in practice, the package of entitlements conveyed to video makers by the Clubs and Euroleague in exchange for exclusive licensing rights is essential for the deal. Realistically speaking, would it be possible for EA Games to create the NBA 2K 15 with Strasbourg and Nanterre playing, without including their players’ image rights? Clubs and Euroleague license players’ image rights and it goes without saying that they get significant revenues from the licencing agreement, while some players receive only a compensation which has been fixed in advance as part of their overall remuneration. It is this ‘without further compensation’ use of image rights provided by the contracts signed by players, therefore, that infringes their right to the commercial exploitation of their own image rights. 


Conclusive Remarks

In our previous blogpost, we cited the SNB’s president words: the SNB motion against EA Games is not about the money, but rather to defend basketball players’ rights.[14] Undoubtedly, image rights are also about the money, even if in the European context the monetary compensation is limited. We have shown that the unauthorized use of players’ image rights or the loss of their exclusive use may deprive them from a fair share of the club’s lucrative endorsement contracts. Furthermore, the existence of products bearing a player’s image without his authorization can in some cases seriously damage the value of his licensing rights.[15] Moreover, irrespectively of the legal qualification of image rights as ‘right of publicity’ or ‘right to personality’, this is a right gained through hard work on the basketball courts and the player should in any events get a share of the licensing revenues it generates.

The ‘David against Goliath’ American college sports crusade shows the way for European professional basketball players: a ‘without further compensation’ use of image rights or the denial of liability of the Clubs for non-payment of image rights contracts can be (and should be) successfully fought against.


[1] L Colantuoni and C Novazio, ‘Intellectual Property Righs in Basketball’ (2011) 1-2 International Sports Law Journal, 59.

[2] Ibid, 58.

[3] http://economics.stanford.edu/files/Theses/RobertLemonsHonorsThesis-May2014.pdf

[4] For an interesting insight on NCAA practice, see: B Starkey, ‘College Sports Aren't Like Slavery. They're Like Jim Crow’ where the author compares college athletes’ status to the status of “blacks after slavery”.

[5] Form 08-3a, Part Iv

[6] United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, NCAA Student-Athlete name & likeness litigation (No 10-15387)

[7] Edward O’Bannon et al v National Collegiate Athletics Association, Electronic Arts Inc and Collegiate Licensing Company (US District Court, 08.08.2014)

[8] M Zylstra, Ed. O’Bannon vs. NCAA: An examination of O’Bannon’s legal claim that the NCAA illegally uses the likeness and image of former student-athletes (2009) 205 Business Law, 5.

[9] Ibid, 6.

[10] See for example, Article 69  of the Euroleague Bylaws 2012-2013: “The Company and EP have the right to use the image of the club’s players, the players’ likeness (photograph, caricature, etc), name, number, or any combination thereof for any and all commercial and promotional purposes solely in connection with the Euroleague and provided that the image of the player appears linked to the club, the player wearing its apparel and footwear, or when the player participates in public events organised by the club or by the Company”.

[11] See, Standard Player Contract of SIG BASKET SAEMSL , Clause 9.1 :The Player agrees, without further compensation, to allow the Club or the National League or Euroleague Basketball and their respective sponsors to take pictures of the Player, during game action or posed, as necessary, alone or together with others, for still photographs, motion pictures, internet, TV or any other form of media whether presently known or unknown, at such times as the Club or the National League or Euroleague Basketball may designate. Such pictures may be used, without further compensation, in any manner desired by either the Club or the National League or Euroleague Basketball or their respective sponsors only for publicity or promotional purposes. The rights in any such pictures taken by the Club or by the National League or by Euroleague Basketball shall belong to the Club or to the National League or to Euroleague Basketball as their interests may appear.”

[12] Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Testimony of the NCAA’s lead expert Neal Pilson (vol 4) 715-815

[13] Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, Testimony of Edwin Desser (vol 4), 618-708.

[14] Johan Passave-Ducteil, the president of SNB remarks in l’Equipe:"Ce n’est pas une histoire d’argent, on défend le droit des joueurs".

[15] L Colantuoni and C Novazio (n1), 60

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