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

[Online Event] The aftermath of the Women's World Cup final: FIFA's and UEFA's responsibility in the Jenni Hermoso case

Join us on 14 December at 12:00 CET for an online discussion on FIFA and UEFA’s responsibility in responding to the incident that overshadowed Spains’ victory of the Women's World Cup, when Spanish national team player Jennifer Hermoso experienced a violation of her bodily integrity and physical autonomy due to a forced kiss given to her by Luis Rubiales, then the Spanish FA's president. 


During the 2023/2024 academic year, the Asser International Sports Law Centre dedicates special attention to the intersection between transnational sports law and governance and gender. This online discussion is the second in a series of (online and offline) events, which explore the way in which international sports governing bodies define the gender divide in international sports, police gender-based abuses, and secure gender-specific rights to athletes. You can watch the recording of our first virtual discussion on the Semenya judgment of the ECtHR on our Youtube Channel.  


Just minutes after the Spanish women's national team had won the FIFA Women's World Cup, Rubiales congratulated the players on the podium and grabbed Hermoso's head and kissed her on the lips. This act not only shocked the players and the audience but also caused immediate international uproar and calls for resignation. Rubiales first defended his act, claiming that Hermoso had agreed to it. However, her statements right after it happened, as well as her official statement published just a few days after the event forcefully denied the consensual nature of the kiss. Hermoso felt “vulnerable and a victim of aggression, an impulsive act, sexist, out of place and without any type of consent". Three months later, Rubiales has been suspended by FIFA for three years, resigned as president of the Spanish FA, and is facing criminal prosecution for the crimes of sexual assault and coercion in Spanish national courts. 


As extreme as this case sounds, it is not. In fact, it is a reflection of structural issues that exist in the world of women's football and women's sport more generally. Furthermore, this incident raises the question of the rights of the players subjected to such behaviour and the responsibility of sports governing bodies, and FIFA and UEFA in particular, insanctioning those who are engaging in such actions. How should SGBs respond to such incidents? What type of rules and procedures should they have in place? What are the measures that should be introduced to prevent similar actions in the future? What is the role of states (the Spanish state in the present instance) in investigating and prosecuting these cases?  


We look forward to discussing these issues (and many others) with our three speakers, who have followed the case closely: 

  • Kat Craig, human rights lawyer, founder and CEO of Athlead, Senior Adviser to the Centre for Sport and Human Rights; 

  • Alexandra Gómez Bruinewoud, is a Senior Legal Counsel at FIFPRO and a judge at the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber; 

  • Borja Garcia is Reader in Sport Policy and Governance at School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences in Loughborough University


The online discussion will be introduced and moderated by Dr Antoine Duval and Dr Daniela Heerdt, and will include short presentations by the speakers and a Q&A with the audience. 


This is a free event, you can register for it HERE

Human Rights Protection and the FIFA World Cup: A Never-Ending Match? - By Daniela Heerdt

Editor’s note: Daniela Heerdt is a PhD candidate at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands. Her PhD research deals with the establishment of responsibility and accountability for adverse human rights impacts of mega-sporting events, with a focus on FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games. She recently published an article in the International Sports Law Journal that discusses to what extent the revised bidding and hosting regulations by FIFA, the IOC and UEFA strengthen access to remedy for mega-sporting events-related human rights violations.


The 21st FIFA World Cup is currently underway. Billions of people around the world follow the matches with much enthusiasm and support. For the time being, it almost seems forgotten that in the final weeks leading up to the events, critical reports on human rights issues related to the event piled up. This blog explains why addressing these issues has to start well in advance of the first ball being kicked and cannot end when the final match has been played. More...



FIFA's Responsibility for Human Rights Abuses in Qatar – Part II: The Zurich Court's Ruling - By Tomáš Grell

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

This is a follow-up contribution to my previous blog on FIFA's responsibility for human rights abuses in Qatar published last week. Whereas the previous part has examined the lawsuit filed with the Commercial Court of the Canton of Zurich ('Court') jointly by the Dutch trade union FNV, the Bangladeshi Free Trade Union Congress, the Bangladesh Building and Wood Workers Federation and the Bangladeshi citizen Nadim Shariful Alam ('Plaintiffs') against FIFA, this second part will focus on the Court's ruling dated 3 January 2017 ('Ruling').[1]  More...



FIFA's Responsibility for Human Rights Abuses in Qatar - Part I: The Claims Against FIFA - By Tomáš Grell

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

On 2 December 2010, the FIFA Executive Committee elected Qatar as host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup ('World Cup'), thereby triggering a wave of controversies which underlined, for the most part, the country's modest size, lack of football history, local climate, disproportionate costs or corruption that accompanied the selection procedure. Furthermore, opponents of the decision to award the World Cup to the tiny oil-rich Gulf country also emphasized the country's negative human rights record.

More than six years later, on 3 January 2017, the Commercial Court of the Canton of Zurich ('Court') dismissed the lawsuit filed against FIFA[1] jointly by the Dutch trade union FNV, the Bangladeshi Free Trade Union Congress, the Bangladesh Building and Wood Workers Federation and the Bangladeshi citizen Nadim Shariful Alam ('Plaintiffs').[2] The Plaintiffs requested the Court to find FIFA responsible for alleged human rights violations of migrant workers in connection with the World Cup in Qatar. Had the Plaintiffs' claims been upheld by the Court, such decision would have had far-reaching consequences on the fate of thousands of migrants, mostly from India, Nepal and Bangladesh, who are currently working on the construction of sporting facilities and other infrastructure associated with organization of the World Cup. More...

International and European Sports Law – Monthly Report – March 2016. By Marine Montejo

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. 

Marine Montejo is a graduate from the College of Europe in Bruges and is currently an Intern at the ASSER International Sports Law Centre.


The Headlines

The Belgian Court of Appeal released its judgment this month regarding Doyen’s legal battle against the FIFA TPO ban. The Appeal Court confirmed the first instance decision and ruled out any provisional measures to block the ban’s implementation (for an in depth review, see our blog post). More importantly, the Court reaffirmed that Swiss based sport federations are liable in front of EU Members’ States courts when EU competition law is involved. That means the next important step for this legal battle is whether or not the European Commission is going to open a formal proceeding (Doyen already lodged a complaint) to assess the compatibility, and more importantly, the proportionality of the TPO ban with EU law. Only a preliminary ruling by the CJEU could hasten the decision if one of the European national courts, hearing a case brought by Doyen (France or Belgium), decided to refer a preliminary question.More...


The 2006 World Cup Tax Evasion Affair in Germany: A short guide. By Gesa Kuebek

Editor's note:

Gesa Kuebek holds an LLM and graduated from the University of Bologna, Gent and Hamburg as part of the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Law and Economics and now work as an intern for the Asser Instituut.


On Monday, 9 November, the German Football Association (DFB) announced in a Press Release the resignation of its head, Wolfgang Niersbach, over the 2006 World Cup Affair. In his statement, Niersbach argued that he had “no knowledge whatsoever” about any “payments flows” and is now being confronted with proceedings in which he was “never involved”. However, he is now forced to draw the “political consequences” from the situation. His resignation occurred against the backdrop of last week’s raid of the DFB’s Frankfurt headquarters and the private homes Niersbach, his predecessor Theo Zwanziger and long-standing DFB general secretary Horst R. Schmidt. The public prosecutor’s office investigates a particularly severe act of tax evasion linked to awarding the 2006 World Cup. The 2006 German “summer fairy-tale” came under pressure in mid-October 2015, after the German magazine “Der Spiegel” shocked Fußballdeutschland by claiming that it had seen concrete evidence proving that a €6.7 million loan, designated by the FIFA for a “cultural programme”, ended up on the account of Adidas CEO Robert-Louis Dreyfuß. The magazine further argued that the money was in fact a secret loan that was paid back to Dreyfuß. Allegedly, the loan was kept off the books intentionally in order to be used as bribes to win the 2006 World Cup bid. The public prosecutor now suspects the DFB of failing to register the payment in tax returns. German FA officials admit that the DFB made a “mistake” but deny all allegations of vote buying. However, the current investigations show that the issues at stakes remain far from clear, leaving many questions regarding the awarding of the 2006 World Cup unanswered.

The present blog post aims to shed a light on the matter by synthetizing what we do know about the 2006 World Cup Affair and by highlighting the legal grounds on which the German authorities investigate the tax evasion. More...




ASSER Exclusive! Interview with Charles “Chuck” Blazer by Piotr Drabik

Editor’s note: Chuck Blazer declined our official interview request but thanks to some trusted sources (the FIFA indictment and Chuck’s testimony) we have reconstructed his likely answers. This is a fictional interview. Any resemblance with real facts is purely coincidental.



Mr Blazer, thank you for agreeing to this interview, especially considering the circumstances. How are you doing?

I am facing ten charges concerning, among others, conspiracy to corrupt and money laundering. But apart from that, I am doing great (laughs)!

 

It is good to know that you have not lost your spirit. And since you’ve been involved in football, or as you call it soccer, for years could you please first tell us what was your career at FIFA and its affiliates like?

Let me see… Starting from the 1990s I was employed by and associated with FIFA and one of its constituent confederations, namely the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF). At various times, I also served as a member of several FIFA standing committees, including the marketing and television committee. As CONCACAF’s general secretary, a position I proudly held for 21 years, I was responsible, among many other things, for negotiations concerning media and sponsorship rights. From 1997 to 2013 I also served at FIFA’s executive committee where I participated in the selection process of the host countries for the World Cup tournaments. Those years at the helm of world soccer were truly amazing years of travel and hard work mainly for the good of the beautiful game. I might add that I even managed to document some of my voyages on my blog. I initially called it “Travels with Chuck Blazer” but Vladimir (Putin) convinced me to change the name to “Travels with Chuck Blazer and his Friends”. You should check it out.

 More...



Cannibal's Advocate – In defence of Luis Suarez

Luis Suarez did it again. The serial biter that he is couldn’t refrain its impulse to taste a bit of Chiellini’s shoulder (not really the freshest meat around though). Notwithstanding his amazing theatrical skills and escaping the sight of the referee, Suarez could not in the information age get away with this unnoticed. Seconds after the incident, the almighty “social networks” were already bruising with evidence, outrage and commentaries over Suarez’s misdeed. Since then, many lawyers have weighed in (here, here and here) on the potential legal consequences faced by Suarez. Yesterday FIFA’s disciplinary committee decided to sanction him with a 4 months ban from any football activity and a 9 International games ban. In turn, Suarez announced that he would challenge the decision[1], and plans on going to the Court of Arbitration for Sport if necessary[2]. Let’s be the advocates of the cannibal!More...

Blurred Nationalities: The list of the “23” and the eligibility rules at the 2014 FIFA World Cup. A guest Post by Yann Hafner (Université de Neuchâtel)

In 2009, Sepp Blatter expressed his concerns that half of the players participating in the 2014 FIFA World Cup would be Brazilians naturalized by other countries. The Official list of Players released a few weeks ago tends to prove him wrong[1]. However, some players have changed their eligibility in the past and will even be playing against their own country of origin[2]. This post aims at explaining the key legal aspects in changes of national affiliation and to discuss the regulations pertaining to the constitution of national sides in general[3]. More...

The FIFA Business – Part 2 - Where is the money going? By Antoine Duval and Giandonato Marino

Our first report on the FIFA business dealt with FIFA’s revenues and highlighted their impressive rise and progressive diversification. In parallel to this growth of FIFA’s income, it is quite natural that its expenses have been following a similar path (see Graph 1). However, as we will see FIFA makes it sometimes very difficult to identify precisely where the money is going. Nonetheless, this is precisely what we wish to tackle in this post, and to do so we will rely on the FIFA Financial reports over the last 10 years.


 

Graph 1: FIFA Expenses in USD million (adjusted for inflation), 2003-2013.

More...


Asser International Sports Law Blog | International and European Sports Law – Monthly Report – March 2017. By Tomáš Grell

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

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

 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

The CAS award in Joseph S. Blatter v. FIFA

In the first half of March, the CAS published its long-awaited award in the arbitration procedure between FIFA’s former President Mr Joseph S. Blatter and FIFA itself. The Panel dismissed the appeal filed by Mr Blatter against the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee on 16 February 2016. As a result, Mr Blatter remains banned from taking part in any football-related activity at national and international level for six years as of 8 October 2015.

The dispute in question concerned (i) a payment of CHF 2,000,000 made by FIFA to Mr Michel Platini in early 2011 allegedly remunerating work performed by Mr Platini for FIFA between January 1999 and June 2002; and (ii) Mr Blatter’s alleged authorization which entitled Mr Platini to receive credit towards his FIFA ExCo pension fund for his service to FIFA from 1998 to 2002. With regard to the former, the Panel held that assuming there actually had been an oral agreement between Mr Blatter and Mr Platini dating back to 1998, such an agreement would nevertheless have been superseded by the written employment contract signed in August 1999 (according to that contract, Mr Platini were to be remunerated ‘only’ CHF 300,000 a year). Consequently, the Panel concluded that there was no contractual basis for the payment of CHF 2,000,000 in favour of Mr Platini. In respect of the second point of contention, namely the contribution towards Mr Platini’s FIFA ExCo pension fund, the Panel held that Mr Platini was simply not entitled to receive such a contribution for his service to FIFA from 1998 to 2002, as he became a member of the FIFA Executive Committee only in 2002.

The CAS award in Seraing FC v. FIFA 

The dispute between the Belgian football club Seraing FC and FIFA has its roots in the decision rendered by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee in September 2015. In this decision, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee imposed a transfer ban (four consecutive registration periods) and a fine of CHF 150,000 on Seraing FC for violating Articles 18bis and 18ter of the Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players which prohibit the third-party influence on clubs and the third-party ownership of players’ economic rights (TPO) respectively. The Belgian club challenged the said decision (as confirmed by the FIFA Appeal Committee) before the CAS.

In its press release dated 10 March 2017, FIFA expressed its content with the award delivered by the CAS. According to FIFA, ‘the CAS has recognized and confirmed the validity of FIFA’s ban on TPO, which was adopted in order to preserve the independence of clubs and players in matters of recruitment and transfer, and to ensure the integrity of matches and competitions’. The CAS has not yet published the award, nor has it issued any statement in this regard.

WADA calls upon athletes and other persons to ‘Speak Up!’ 

On 9 March 2017, WADA launched a new digital platform called ‘Speak Up!’, which seeks to encourage athletes and others to come forward and report (i) alleged Anti-Doping Rule Violations under the World Anti-Doping Code (Code); (ii) non-compliance violations under the Code; or (iii) any act or omission that could undermine the fight against doping in sport. On this occasion, WADA’s Director General, Mr Olivier Niggli, stated that ‘WADA’s independent Pound and McLaren Investigations, which were both triggered by whistleblowers, highlighted the importance of these individuals to the Agency and to clean sport on the whole’. The platform is accessible via a secure app for iPhone and Android phones.

 

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Asser International Sports Law Blog | International and European Sports Law – Monthly Report – October 2017. By Tomáš Grell

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

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

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

Chairman of the Rio 2016 Organising Committee arrested on corruption charges

On 4 October 2017, Brazilian authorities arrested (now former) President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and an IOC Honorary Member Carlos Arthur Nuzman. The chairman of the Rio 2016 Organising Committee was allegedly implicated in a vote-buying scheme associated with the host selection process for the 2016 Olympic Games. Consequently, the IOC Executive Board provisionally suspended Mr Nuzman from his function as an IOC Honorary Member and further decided to withdraw him from the Coordination Commission for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Moreover, the IOC also provisionally suspended the Brazilian Olympic Committee, noting that this decision shall not affect Brazilian athletes. Subsequently, Mr Nuzman resigned as the President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee. On 31 October 2017, the IOC communicated that the Brazilian Olympic Committee would be allowed to exercise again its membership rights in associations of National Olympic Committees. However, the IOC also emphasised that other measures imposed as part of the provisional suspension of the Brazilian Olympic Committee would remain in place until the relevant governance issues are addressed to the satisfaction of the IOC Executive Board.

China accused of running a systematic doping programme in the 1980s and 1990s

On 21 October 2017, a German television broadcasted a documentary featuring Xue Yinxian, a 79-year-old Chinese doctor currently seeking political asylum in Germany. Mrs Yinxian spent a great part of her life as a physician looking after some of the most prominent Chinese athletes, in particular the successful gymnasts. In the relevant documentary, she described a sophisticated state-sponsored doping programme allegedly prevailing in China in the 1980s and 1990s, and demanded that all medals won by Chinese athletes during the period in question be withdrawn. In response, the World Anti-Doping Agency informed that it had commissioned its Intelligence and Investigations team to initiate an investigative process in this regard.

Preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice in the case involving the English Bridge Union

Duplicate bridge is not a sport, at least not for the purposes of the Council Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax (VAT Directive). This conclusion was reached by the judges of the European Court of Justice in the preliminary ruling proceedings involving the English Bridge Union and the Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs. Most importantly, the Court asserted that ''an activity such as duplicate bridge, which is characterised by a physical element that appears to be negligible, is not covered by the concept of 'sport' within the meaning of the VAT Directive''.

 

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Asser International Sports Law Blog | Sports governance 20 years after Bosman: Back to the future… or not? By Borja García

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

Sports governance 20 years after Bosman: Back to the future… or not? By Borja García

Editor's note:

Dr Borja García joined the School of Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences at Loughbourough University in January 2009 as a Lecturer in Sport Management and Policy. He holds a PhD in Politics, International Relations and European Studies from Loughborough University (United Kingdom), where he completed his thesis titled ‘The European Union and the Governance of Football: A game of levels and agendas’.

 

In this leafy and relatively mild autumn, we are celebrating two important anniversaries. Recently, we just passed ‘Back to the Future day’, marking the arrival of Marty McFly to 2015. In a few weeks, we will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Bosman ruling. Difficult to decide which one of the two is more important. As we move well into the 21st century’s second decade, these two dates should mark a moment to consider innovation. They are perhaps occasions to take stock and reflect how much sport has evolved to reach this new future… or not.

When Marty McFly ‘landed’ on October 21st 2015, at 4.29 PM, he found a whole new world. Flying skateboards, holograms, massive jumbo screens… There was not much reference to sport governance in Back to the Future, although in the vein of the rest of the film, one would anticipate a modern, innovative and decidedly better sporting world. However, if Marty McFly, coming from the 1980s or 1990s, had arrived into the real October 21st 2015 and looked at the present state of sport governance, he may have thought his De Lorean was not working properly! Twenty years on from Bosman, and more than a decade since major scandals that were supposed to change the landscape of sport (so we were told back then), a familiar feeling of déjà-vu emerges when reading the sport news nowadays.

The late 1980s and 1990s were characterised by legal insecurity, scandals and transformation in the governance of sport. There were legal challenges to the legitimacy of governing bodies. Bosman was just one of them, but on the back of the ruling the European Commission was inundated with questions related to the application of EU law to the rules of sport governing bodies. Those were also days of major public opinion upheaval against the institutionalised doping or the mismanagement of the IOC.

Fast forward to 2015 and we find ourselves in a very similar situation! After a period of relative calm, legal challenges from stakeholders against rules and regulations of governing bodies have flourished everywhere. Dutch skaters against ISU, Mr. Striani against UEFA, FIFPro against the international transfer system, the Spanish and Portuguese leagues against FIFA... just to name a few. Moreover, it seems as if doping and corruption never left us. It was cycling back then, and Russian athletics now. It was the Olympics and Salt Lake City in the 1990s, football, Russia and Qatar now. It seems not much progress has been achieved in 20 years.

Why is that? One of the reasons is that, despite some changes and mild modernisation, the governance structures are still very similar. No flying skateboards around FIFA or the IOC, I am afraid. Sport continues to be regulated by international federations trying to keep their place at the top of a pyramid that, however, is no longer there because it has given place to a much more complex network. The transformation from vertical governance to horizontal structures, that caused many problems in the public sector as described by Rod Rhodes[1] (among others), has not been correctly addressed in sport.

As Jack Anderson has correctly pointed out, perhaps one of the problems is that the current political governance structures of sport are not fit for purpose. They lack real separation of powers. For example, when the Spanish athlete (now a senator!) Marta Domínguez is allegedly accused of doping due to irregularities in her blood passport, WADA sends the dossier to the Spanish Athletics Federation, in which Domínguez was a vice-president for a few years, serving under the current president (who has been in charge since 1989, so probably Marty McFly knows him well!). Can the disciplinary committees of such a body be really independent and be expected to pass a clear and decisive judgment? Of course, they cannot and have not done so!

But the questions are perhaps more systemic. Are international sport federations really fit for the purpose of modern sport? The new reality of sport is one where the commercial dimension is increasingly divorcing from the coveted grassroots or sport-for-all Holy Grail. ISFs, and most public sport policies, are still attempting to house these two different realities under one common roof. Questions need to be asked as to whether this confusion des genres is even possible. There was a time in which the European Commission suggested that international federations had to separate their regulatory and commercial roles. But not much has been done in that respect since the Formula 1 case. Perhaps it should be accepted that elite and professional sport needs a new approach. If ISFs are serious, they need to start putting in place much more modern management and governance structures. Executive committees need to stop being ‘representative’ of the stakeholders, turning to be ‘skills based’. They need, of course, to be much more age, race and gender diverse. Independent directors need to be fully incorporated to councils, boards and federations’ EXCOs. Standing committees need to be more independent and need to have targets… This is nothing new, but it reads as a revolution in the world of international sport.

Given the governance failures of sport, it is often questioned whether public authorities could/should/ought to regulate or bring sport to account. Here, it seems fair to say that following the political ‘backlash’ of Bosman, aptly articulated by some sport bodies, politicians have erred on the cautious side. The idea that the EU “was trying to kill club football in Europe”, as put forward by Lennart Johanson on 16 December 1995 was powerful enough to discourage the EU, and other public authorities for that matter, to regulate sport. The reality is that, to date, perhaps the EU is the only public body that has managed to bring to account international sport, even in a limited fashion, as I have argued in a recent article[2]. The mainstreaming of the autonomy and specificity of sport into EU policies, however, has deterred EU institutions from pursuing a much more proactive approach in the control and regulation of sport.

After Bosman, there was a period in which both sport and EU law found each other. There were negotiations and some changes in both sides. There were even positive noises coming from different social dialogue committees. The calm, however, has been broken abruptly. And we have woken up back to the future, as if 1995 had never passed. ASSER’s very own Antoine Duval, and some authors such as Arnout Geeraert have recently argued that the EU should be much stronger in its application of EU law to sport. The problem is: can they really do it? In an increasingly Eurosceptic environment amongst the peoples of Europe, can the EU really risk trying to have a go at sport? It can be argued, that sport as an area of ‘soft politics’ and popular culture may give the EU some of its lost legitimacy back. But I am not so sure. In a recent survey, part of the FREE Project, we asked Europeans in nine countries whether they trusted the EU (amongst other bodies) to regulate the governance of football. The answer was clear: No, they do not. Of the nine different organisations offered in the survey, the EU was the third least trusted body, only above the media and national governments. In the survey, only 40% of the Europeans in the nine countries polled trusted the EU in this respect. This goes down to 21% when the survey is restricted to core football fans, not the general public. In other words, Europeans do not trust the EU, nor national governments to improve the governance of football. So, if the EU tries to have a stronger position in the application of European law and policies to sport, it may well backfire.

Normally, I have refrained from such a normative approach to governance. As a political scientist, I prefer to analyse what actors do, rather than to tell them, what to do. However, it is clear to me that what they have done so far is not working. Twenty years on from Bosman, and a visit of Marty McFly after, the ‘future’ of international sport governance looks conspicuously similar to the past. And it is not good. We need a solution that brings us to the future, to a real future where the past is finally put to rest.


[1] Rhodes, RAW. (1997) Understanding governance: policy networks, governance, reflexivity and accountability, Maidenhead: Open University Press.

[2] Meier, HE and García, B. (2015) ‘Protecting private transnational authority against public intervention: The power of FIFA over national governments’. Public Administration, Early view, September 2015, doi: 10.1111/padm.12208.

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