Asser International Sports Law Blog

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only in September this year, it is now clear that, be it either Los Angeles or Paris (as Budapest has recently withdrawn its bid), it will have to abide by an additional set of human rights obligations.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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Editor's note: Mark James is Professor of Sports Law at Manchester Metropolitan University and the author of a leading Sports Law textbook.

The opening days of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 have already resulted in a number of issues of interest to sports lawyers and human rights lawyers, with FARE’s Piara Powar claiming that this is the most political major sporting event that he has attended. Both FIFA and the local organisers have been active in their suppression of expressions of support for LGBTQIA+ rights by players, fans and journalists alike, calling into question once again the legality of restricting free speech by sporting rules and regulations.

There have been two major flashpoints to date. First, seven European federations had asked FIFA for permission for their captains to wear armbands supporting the ‘OneLove’ campaign. FIFA’s response was to refuse, resulting in the German players covering their mouths for their pre-match photographs in protest at their being silenced. There are several grounds on which FIFA would seek to support its position:

Law 4.5 of the Laws of the Game prohibits any playing equipment from carrying any political, religious or personal slogans, statements or images.
Regulation 4.3.1 of FIFA’s Equipment Regulations and Regulation 27.1 of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Regulations prohibits clothing or equipment that includes political, religious, or personal slogans, statements, or images, or otherwise does not comply in full with the Laws of the Game.
Regulation 33.3 of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Regulations prohibits the display of political, religious or personal messages or slogans of any nature in any language or form by players and officials.
Regulation 13.8.1 of FIFA’s Equipment Regulations states that for FIFA Final Competitions, the captain of each Team must wear the captain’s armband provided by FIFA (all Regulations available in the FIFA Legal Handbook 2022).

Although the DFB is considering a challenge to FIFA’s refusal to allow its captain to wear the OneLove armband, which would ultimately be heard before CAS, it is unlikely to succeed in the face of the strict requirements of the above Laws and Regulations. However, what could cause more difficulty for both FIFA and CAS is if the DFB frames its case as a challenge to the compliance of the rules that restrict players’ freedom of expression with Article 3 of FIFA’s Statutes, which states that ‘FIFA is committed to respecting all internationally recognised human rights.’ Article 3, together with the additional detail provided by FIFA’s Human Rights Policy, ensures that freedom of expression as defined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights are limitative rules that can be applied directly to FIFA’s activities, as has been argued by Bützler and Schöddert. Further, if the affected players and associations can define themselves as human rights defenders, then Article 11 of FIFA’s Human Rights Policy states that, ‘FIFA will respect and not interfere with the work of … human rights defenders who voice concerns about adverse human rights impacts relating to FIFA.’ Any challenge using this approach would be the first real test of the enforceability of the human rights protections to which FIFA claims to be committed. It would also be a test of CAS’s ability to require adherence to the human rights commitments made by ISFs and to prove that they are more than simple window-dressing.

Secondly, members of The Rainbow Wall, a contingent of LGBTQIA+ rights-supporting Welsh fans, were prevented from entering the Ahmed bin Ali stadium whilst wearing bucket hats incorporating a rainbow into its design. No explanation for why was given, however, FIFA and the local organisers would argue that openly supporting LGBTQIA+ rights with the aim of promoting legal change in a country where homosexuality is illegal is a political statement on apparel and therefore entry into the stadium wearing the rainbow hat is in breach of the Regulation 3.1.23 of the Stadium Code of Conduct. A similar argument could be used to justify preventing US journalist Grant Wahl from entering the stadium wearing a t-shirt incorporating a rainbow into its design and Danish journalist Jon Pagh from wearing the OneLove armband. However, it must be stressed that no such explanation for the prohibitions applied to these garments was provided to any of the affected fans or journalists. It must also be recognised that the opinion that promoting LGBTQIA+ rights is a political expression is highly contested. In a statement from FIFPRO, the opposing view was stated succinctly: ‘We maintain that a rainbow flag is not a political statement but an endorsement of equality and thus a universal human right.’

It is clear that, as with Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, the chilling effect that FIFA’s Regulations have on players’ and fans’ freedom of expression is likely to be unlawful, as has been discussed at length both on this blog and on the Verfassungsblog Debate on Freedom of Expression in the Olympic Movement. Instead of revisiting these arguments, which are taken to apply to FIFA’s actions at Qatar 2022, two additional issues related to the FIFA Statutes are explored here.

Articles 3 and 4 of FIFA’s Statutes state that:

3 Human rights

FIFA is committed to respecting all internationally recognised human rights and shall strive to promote the protection of these rights.

4 Non-discrimination, equality and neutrality

4.1 Discrimination of any kind against a country, private person or group of people on account of race, skin colour, ethnic, national or social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political opinion or any other opinion, wealth, birth or any other status, sexual orientation or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.

FIFA is a long-time supporter of pride events and in its press release for Pride Month 2022 stated:

[The] FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ will be a celebration of unity and diversity – a joining of people from all walks of life – regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, age, disability, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression – everybody will be welcome.

Claims that all staff involved in the Qatar 2022 including public and private security forces, would be trained on how to accomplish their tasks in a non-discriminatory manner, seem not to have been operationalised effectively.

This begs the question whether FIFA is in breach of its own Statutes by refusing to allow players to express themselves freely on armbands and failing to protect fans’ freedom of expression by wearing rainbows. At the very least, FIFA should have ensured that a protective LGBTQIA+ regime in the stadiums and the fan zones during the World Cup was implemented to enable the ‘celebration of unity and diversity’ it claims that Qatar 2022 should be. FIFA’s actions in Qatar call into question its claims to be an inclusive and supportive leader on anti-discrimination and human rights, and is likely to see a backlash from the LGBTQIA+ community that it claims to support when it engages with Pride 2023; accusations of hypocrisy and virtue signalling are guaranteed.

With no resolution to the debate at the time of writing, Articles 3 and 4 could provide players and fans with the opportunity to demonstrate their support for human rights and anti-discrimination causes. At the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, Athlete Ally developed the ‘Principle 6 Campaign.’ Instead of criticising directly Russia's so called anti-gay laws, which are currently in the process of being extended, athletes promoted Principle 6 of the Olympic Charter, which at the time stated that, ‘Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.’ The eventual outcome of this campaign was the addition of sexual orientation to the list of characteristics protected by Principle 6. Unlike at Sochi 2014, there is no need to campaign for a change to either of Articles 3 or 4 of the FIFA Statutes; instead, activists want to ensure that they are being applied. An immediate response for both players and fans would be for them to quote specifically from Articles 3 and 4, as it would be extremely difficult for FIFA to claim that they are making political or personal statements when promoting FIFA’s own foundational values. A creative reminder of what FIFA claims to stand for could enable player and fan activism to continue throughout the tournament, and beyond, whilst affected players and associations can develop a compelling case for the restrictions on freedom of expression to be struck out by CAS, the Swiss Federal Tribunal and/or the European Court of Human Rights.

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

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

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

Time to focus on freedom of expression: Rainbows, armbands, and FIFA’s commitment to human rights - By Prof. Mark James (Manchester Metropolitan University)

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