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 end of governance reforms at FIFA?

The main sports governance story that surfaced in the press (see here and here) during the last month is related to significant personal changes made by the FIFA Council within the organization’s institutional structure. In particular, the FIFA Council dismissed the heads of the investigatory (Mr Cornel Borbély) and adjudicatory (Mr Hans-Joachim Eckert) chambers of the Independent Ethics Committee, as well as the Head (Mr Miguel Maduro) of the Governance and Review Committee. The decision to remove Mr Maduro was taken arguably in response to his active role in barring Mr Vitaly Mutko, a Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, from sitting on the FIFA Council due to an imminent conflict of interests. These events constitute a major setback to governance reforms initiated by the football’s world governing body in 2015. For a more detailed insight into the governance reforms at FIFA, we invite you to read the recent blog written by our senior researcher Mr Antoine Duval.

The CAS award in Real Madrid CF v. FIFA

At the end of the month, the CAS finally published its award delivered in the arbitration procedure between the Spanish club Real Madrid CF and FIFA regarding the transfer of minor football players. Mr Michele Bernasconi, sitting as a Sole Arbitrator, partially upheld the appeal filed by Real Madrid CF against the decision rendered by the FIFA Appeal Committee on 8 April 2016. The Sole Arbitrator reduced the ban (registering new players both on a national and international level) imposed on the Spanish club by the FIFA Appeal Committee from two to one entire transfer period. Moreover, Real Madrid CF is now obliged to pay CHF 240,000 instead of the original fine amounting to CHF 360,000. 

UEFA incorporates human rights and anti-corruption criteria into bidding requirements

UEFA has recently made available the Bid Dossier Template for the 2024 European Championship that will be held either in Germany or Turkey. Amongst other things, the two remaining candidates shall describe in their bid dossiers a global strategy for integrating the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in order to protect, respect and fulfil universal human rights, including child rights and the rights of workers. On this occasion, UEFA President Mr Aleksander Čeferin stated that ‘it was imperative […] to introduce specific articles on the respect and protection of human rights in the bidding requirements for all our competitions.’ By incorporating human rights criteria into bidding requirements, UEFA joins the International Olympic Committee and FIFA in their efforts to tackle human rights abuses associated with mega sporting events.

The return of Claudia Pechstein: Bundesverfassungsgericht edition

Claudia Pechstein is back! For those who have already forgotten the case, this is a dispute involving a German Speed Skater and Olympic gold medallist challenging the validity of a CAS award imposing a doping ban (for greater detail see our previous blogs here and here, and the article by Antoine Duval and Ben van Rompuy). Nothing less than the survival of the CAS, at least as we know it, is at stake. While Claudia Pechstein lost in front of the Bundesgerichtshof, the decision was harshly criticized (here and here) and she decided to challenge the ruling in front of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (constitutional court). Since last month, we know that the Bundesverfassungsgericht will hear and decide the claim, this as such is already a sign that the judges deem the case worthy of consideration and should be cause for concern for those wishing to keep the CAS as it currently is. The silver lining for CAS might be in the Bundesverfassungsgericht’s Solange jurisprudence, which could find a new expression in this peculiar context (as suggested here), it would preserve the CAS’s existence while forcing it to change.

Sports Law Related Decisions

• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between Arijan Ademi and UEFA
• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between IAAF and All Russia Athletics Federation & Vladimir Mokhnev
• CAS – Award delivered in the arbitration between Real Madrid and FIFA
• Supreme Court of Spain – Decision concerning the Spanish cyclist Roberto Heras

Official Documents and Press Releases

• CAS – CAS maintains the temporary bans imposed on six Russian athletes until 31 October 2017, at the latest
• CAS – CAS reduces the sanctions of football players Enrique Luis Triverio and Pablo Cesar Aguilar Benitez
• European Commission – State Aid: Commission approves Slovak support of EUR 36 million for the construction of the national football stadium in Bratislava
• European Commission – The Council approves the new work plan for sport
• Federal Constitutional Court of Germany – Pechstein's constitutional complaint to be heard in 2017
• FIBA – FIBA’s mid-term congress ratifies new headgear rule
• FIFA – Circular no. 1583: Amendment to Article 78 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code
• FIFA – FIFA welcomes outcome of NCP mediation process on workers’ welfare in Qatar
•  FIFA – Member associations release reports on intermediaries
• FIFA – Outcome of second meeting of Governance Committee
• FIFA – Suspension of the Malian FA lifted
•  IOC – Joint statement following the meeting of IOC President, Professor Richard McLaren and WADA President
• Tennis Integrity Unit – Junn Mitsuhashi banned for life for match-fixing offences
• UEFA – Bid Dossier Template for EURO 2024
• WADA – WADA Foundation Board takes decisive action on the Way Forward for the Agency and for Clean Sport

In the news

Doping

• Andy Brown Russia’s National Anti-Doping Plan denies institutional doping
• Andy Brown Spanish police dismantle new sports doping ring
• Michael Pavitt Russia in danger of missing Pyeongchang 2018 as International Paralympic Committee maintain suspension
• Michael Pavitt Russian race walker Trofimov handed four-year ban
  

Football

• Murad Ahmed FIFA ousts governance chief in ‘night of long knives’
• The Associated Press FIFA says blackface in Sochi parade was ‘inappropriate’
• BBC Sport Gothenburg v AIK: ‘Match-fixing attempt’ leads to Swedish fixture postponement
• Simon Bradley FIFA chief Infantino seeks ‘absolute power’ after ousting ethics heads
• Children Win UEFA incorporates human rights and anti-corruption criteria into bidding requirements
• Simon Evans FIFA’s chief ethics investigator and ethics judge replaced
• Graham Dunbar Two more members leave FIFA governance panel
• Nizaar Kinsella The laws of the transfer market could be rewritten with landmark court case in Italy
• James Lynch FIFA’s chance to show they put people ahead of money is now
•  Francine McKenna Will PwC throw the red card on its Swiss firm over FIFA
• Liam Morgan Palestine threaten to take FIFA to CAS after ‘illegal’ postponement of vote by Infantino
• Tariq Panja and Gaspard Sebag Soccer star homes raided in money-laundering investigation

Other

• Amnesty International Qatar: Abuse of migrant workers remains widespread as World Cup stadium hosts first match
• Graham Dunbar Swim body monitoring VP’s alleged role in FIFA bribery case
• Daniel Etchells American tennis player Kryvonos given 10-year ban for match-fixing
• Richard Martin Cycling: Authorities ordered to pay Heras compensation after appeal fails
• Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff Los Angeles residents start to organize against the Olympic bid

Academic Materials

• Mark James Sports Law 3^rd edition
• Nancy Leong Against Women’s Sports

Blogs

Asser International Sports Law Blog

• Antoine Duval The Reform of FIFA: Plus ça change, moins ça change?
• Serhat Yilmaz and Antoine Duval What Pogba’s transfer tells us about the (de)regulation of intermediaries in football
• Branislav Hock Nudging, not crushing, private orders: Private ordering in sports and the role of States
• Saverio Spera Exploring the Validity of Unilateral Extension Options in Football – Part 2: The view of the DRC and the CAS

Law in Sport

• Phil Bonner Are England’s current home grown player requirements sufficient to produce an elite national team?
• William Clerk The rebalancing of power: The need for greater transparency in sports tribunals
• Daniel Geey What a hard ‘red, white and blue’ Brexit may mean for domestic football
• Philip Hutchinson and Tiran Gunawardena Betting in football: Was the FA’s decision on Joey Barton a fair one?
• Stephen Ridgway The 4 key issues facing sports media rights lawyers in 2017: From Head Counsel, Sky Sports
• Lucien Valloni and Stéphanie Oneyser Player contracts: How contractual stability can override a liquidated damages clause
  

Others

• Andy Brown Pressure builds to secure fair athlete rights and representation
• Matt Hart ‘This does not sound legal’: Inside Nike’s Oregon project
• Bonita Mersiades The past is not another country for FIFA
• Léonard Stoyanov Switzerland to become more attractive for international arbitration

Upcoming Events

• 29-30 June – Sport & EU 12^th Annual Conference, Molde University College, Molde, Norway
• 31 August-1 September – EU Sports Law and Policy Summer School, Business and Law Building, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, the United Kingdom
• 26-27 October – ISLJ Annual Conference on International Sports Law, T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague, the Netherlands (Registration is now open here!)
• 26-30 November – Play the Game 2017: Riding Waves of Change, Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Editor's note: This report compiles the most relevant legal news, events and materials on International and European Sports Law based on the daily coverage provided on our twitter feed @Sportslaw_asser. 

The Headlines

International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference 2019

The T.M.C. Asser Institute and the Asser International Sports Law Centre held the third International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) Conference on October 24-25. The Conference created a forum for academics and practitioners to discuss, debate and share knowledge on the latest developments of sports law. It featured six uniquely themed panels, which included topics such as ‘Transfer systems in international sports’ and ‘Revisiting the (in)dependence and transparency of the CAS’ to ‘The future of sports: sports law of the future’. The ISLJ Conference was also honored to have two exceptional keynote speakers: Moya Dodd and Ulrich Haas. To kick off the conference, Moya Dodd shared her experiences from an athlete’s perspective in the various boardrooms of FIFA. The second day was then launched by Ulrich Haas, who gave an incredibly thorough and insightful lecture on the importance, function and legal basis of association tribunals in international sport. For a detailed overview of this year’s ISLJ Conference, click here for the official conference report.

The Asser International Sports Law Centre was delighted to have been able to host another great edition of the ISLJ Conference and is thankful to all the participants and speakers who made this edition such a success.

Moving towards greater transparency: Launch of FIFA’s Legal Portal

On October 31, FIFA announced that it was introducing a new legal portal on its website that will give greater access to numerous documents that previously were kept private. FIFA explains that this is in order to help increase its transparency, which was one of the key ‘Guiding Principles’ highlighted in FIFA 2.0: The Vision for the Future released in 2016. This development comes as many sport governing bodies face increasing criticism for the opacity of its judicial bodies’ decisions, which can have tremendous economic and societal impacts. The newly available documents will include: ‘decisions rendered on the merits by the FIFA Disciplinary Committee and the FIFA Appeal Committee (notified as of 1 January 2019); decisions rendered on the merits by the FIFA Ethics Committee (notified since 1 January 2019); decisions rendered on the merits by the FIFA Players’ Status Committee and the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber; non-confidential CAS awards in proceedings to which FIFA is a party (notified since 1 January 2019); list of CAS arbitrators proposed by FIFA for appointment by ICAS, and the number of times they have been nominated in CAS proceedings’. The list of decisions from all the aforementioned bodies are updated every four months, according to their respective webpages. However, time will ultimately tell how consistently decisions are published. Nevertheless, this move is a major milestone in FIFA’s journey towards increasing its transparency.

Hong Kong Protests, Human Rights and (e)Sports Law: The Blizzard and NBA controversies

Both Blizzard, a major video game developer, and the NBA received a flurry of criticism for their responses to persons expressing support for the Hong Kong protests over the past month. On October 8, Blizzard sanctioned Blitzchung, a professional Hearthstone player who expressed support of the Hong Kong protest during a post-match interview, by eliminating the prize money he had won and suspending him for one year from any Hearthstone tournament. Additionally, Blizzard will cease to work with the casters who conducted the interview. With mounting disapproval over the sanctions,  J. Allen Brack, the president of Blizzard, restored the prize money and reduced the period of ineligibility to 6 months.

The NBA controversy started when Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, tweeted his support for the protests in Hong Kong. The tweet garnered much attention, especially in China where it received a lot of backlash, including an announcement from CCTV, the official state broadcaster in China, that it was suspending all broadcasts of the NBA preseason games. In attempts to appease its Chinese audience, which is a highly profitable market for the NBA, Morey deleted the tweet and posted an apology, and the NBA responded by saying that the initial tweet was ‘regrettable’. Many scolded these actions and accused the NBA of censorship to which the NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, responded that the NBA remains committed to freedom of expression.

Both cases highlighted how (e)sport organizations may be faced with competing interests to either guarantee greater protection of human rights or to pursue interests that perhaps have certain financial motivations.

Major International Sports Law Decisions

• Bundeskartellamt - Decision pursuant to Section 32b GWB (English version)

Official Documents and Press Releases

CAS

• CAS – The CAS expands
• CAS - The hearing in the CAS arbitration procedure between WADA, Sun Yang and FINA to be held in public on 15 November 2019
• CAS - IBU joins CAS Anti-Doping Division

FIFA

• FIFA - FIFA announces latest disciplinary sanctions for incidents during FIFA World Cup™ qualifying
• FIFA - FIFA Council meeting agenda now available
• FIFA - FIFA Council unanimously appoints China PR as hosts of new Club World Cup in 2021
• FIFA - FIFA launches new legal portal

IAAF

• IAAF – New IAAF Athletes' Commission members announced

IOC

• IOC - IOC to Propose Long-term Storage of Samples to Supplement the Pre-games Anti-doping Testing Programme for Tokyo 2020
• IOC - IOC Adapts to a Changing Landscape and Streamlines Its Operations
• IOC – Solidarity and Political Neutrality Vital to the Universality of the Olympic Games, President Bach Tells ANOC General Assembly
• IOC – United Against Manipulation of Competitions: IOC Welcomes a String of New Measures at the International Forum for Sports Integrity

UEFA

• UEFA - UEFA Emergency Panel decision on Kosovo/Russia

WADA

• WADA - WADA suspends accreditation of Athens Laboratory
• WADA - WADA publishes three new Technical Letters
• WADA - WADA update regarding RUSADA Code Compliance
• WADA - WADA declares the International Taekwon-Do Federation non-compliant with World Anti-Doping Code
•  WADA - WADA shares outcomes from National Anti-Doping Organization Advisory Group Meeting
• WADA - WADA publishes proposed drafts of the 2021 World Anti-Doping Code and International Standards
• WADA - WADA publishes Independent Observer Team Report from 2019 European Games
• WADA - WADA publishes amended Technical Document for Sport Specific Analysis
• WADA – WADA removes Mauritius National Anti-Doping Organization from non-compliance list
• WADA - WADA Compliance Review Committee update
• WADA - WADA update regarding RUSADA Code Compliance
• WADA - WADA and Fonds de Recherche du Québec to fund three projects researching the use of artificial intelligence for anti-doping

Other

• AthletesCAN - Open Letter to IOC President Thomas Bach
• Human Rights Watch - Marathoners Wilt in Qatar’s Oppressive Heat
• Human Rights Watch - Iran: Stadium Seating Cap Endangers Women
• Human Rights Watch – For NBA's Quandary over China, Stand with Human Rights
• International Judo Federation - Final Suspension for Iran Judo Federation
• International Shooting Sport Federation - CAS confirm seven International Federations have signed up to Anti-Doping Division
•  International Shooting Sport Federation - Decisions of the ISSF Executive Committee
•  International Table Tennis Federation - World Table Tennis, Governance and Sustainability key topics at recent ITTF Executive Committee meeting.
• Team GB - BOA and Athletes' Commission publishes Tokyo 2020 Rule 40 Guidelines
• TIU (Tennis Integrity Unit) - CAS Upholds Sanction in the Case of Patricio Heras
• UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) - UCI Statement on Kristijan Koren and Borut Bozic
• UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) – The UCI explores new avenues in bid to step up fight against doping in cycling
• US Olympic Committee - U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Updates Domestic Athlete Marketing Guidance For Olympic And Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020
• World Archery Federation - Communication of Sanctions: Jonathan Giocondi of France

In the News

Football

• Tariq Panja - Iranian Women Allowed to Attend Soccer Game for First Time Since 1981
• Maryam Shojaei - FIFA Must Pressure Iran to Let Women Attend Soccer Matches
• Keith Bradsher and Tariq Panja - In China, FIFA’s Focus Is Soccer, Not Human Rights

Doping

• Tariq Panja - Russian Doping Chief Says Thousands of Drug Tests Were Manipulated
• Nicole Perlroth and Tariq Panja - Microsoft Says Russians Hacked Antidoping Agency Computers
• Sara Germano and Joshua Robinson - Nike CEO Mark Parker Was Briefed by Banned Coach on Doping Efforts
• Barney Ronay - Sebastian Coe’s stance on Salazar displays a very British hypocrisy

Other

• Stephen Farrand - Velon starts legal battle with UCI via European Commission anti-trust complaint
• Annie Kelly, Niamh McIntyre and Pete Pattisson - Revealed: hundreds of migrant workers dying of heat stress in Qatar each year
• Steve Menary - Mega-events and human rights: Where do we draw the line?
• John Branch  - N.B.A.-China Spat Shows Sports Isn’t (and Shouldn’t Be) Just About Games
• Daniel Victor - Blizzard Sets Off Backlash for Penalizing Hearthstone Gamer in Hong Kong

Academic Materials

International Sports Law Journal

• Marjolaine Viret - Using interdisciplinary tools to improve anti-doping: Utopia or necessity?

SSRN

• Johan Lindholm - The Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Nordics
• Gina Warren - Mega Sports Events Have Mega Environmental and Social Consequences

Blog

Law in Sport

• Ashley Cukier - How did Liverpool FC escape league cup expulsion for fielding an ineligible player?
• Tiran Gunawardena and Rustam Sethna - An overview of FIFA’s ‘Phase 2’ reforms – agents, loans and clearing house
• Guo Cai - Why understanding diplomacy is the No.1 rule for navigating the Chinese sports market (a Chinese perspective on the Rockets/NBA fallout)
• Philip Hutchinson - Meat contamination and what it means for athletes: A review of Badminton World Federation v Ratchanok Intanon
• Julian Moore - Protecting exclusivity in sports data rights: are courtsiding spotters a step too far for UK football fans?

Upcoming Events

• 22 November - Centre for Sports Law Research and Policing Research Unit - Policing Football Event, Ormskirk, UK
• 26 November - Seminar on EU Sport Diplomacy: Perspectives of Cooperation with International Organisations, Strasbourg, France
•  28 November - CIArb Kenya Annual Lecture - Promoting Sports Arbitration in Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
• 26-27 March 2020 – 14^th Conference of the PSA Sport & Politics Group, Etihad Stadium, Manchester, UK
• 18-19 June 2020 – Sport & EU 2020 Annual Conference

During the 2023/2024 academic year, the Asser International Sports Law Centre will dedicate special attention to the intersection between transnational sports law and governance and gender. This online discussion is the first of a series of (online and offline) events which will explore the way in which international SGBs and the CAS define the gender divide in international sports, police gender-based abuses, and secure gender-specific rights to athletes.

Caster Semenya, a South-African runner and Olympic champion, was dominating her favorite distance, the 800m, for a number of years, when in 2018 the World Athletics (then known as IAAF) adopted a new set of regulations (colloquially known as the DSD Regulations), which imposed new conditions to the eligibility of athletes for certain female competitions, such as the 800m. Semenya, who has a condition known as differences in sex development (DSD), was forced to decide between subjecting to a specific medical treatment aimed at diminishing the level of testosterone in her body or stopping competing on her preferred distance. As she refused to undergo any medical treatment to regain eligibility, she decided to challenge the legality of World Athletics DSD Regulations before the CAS in Lausanne. While the CAS acknowledged that the Regulations were discriminatory and were disregarding the legal sex of Semenya in the name of a so-called sporting sex, the arbitrators also considered that this discrimination was justified and proportionate. Semenya’s challenge against the award was rejected by the Swiss Federal Tribunal (SFT) in August 2020. As a last resort, she decided to lodge an application with ECtHR against Switzerland.

On 11 July 2023, the ECtHR released its judgment in the much-awaited Caster Semenya v. Switzerland case. In short, the Strasbourg Court sided with Semenya and concluded that Switzerland failed to comply with its positive obligations stemming from the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling is an important milestone in the interaction between the CAS and (European) human rights law. It will likely affect the place of human rights (and in particular the ECHR) at the CAS, the intensity of the supervision exercised by the SFT, as well as the justification of the regulatory decisions of the SGBs. We look forward to discussing these with our two speakers, who have followed closely the case and already blogged (here and here) about the judgment:

• Dr. Lena Holzer is Assistant Professor in Gender, Race and the Law at the University of Cambridge and the author of ‘What Does it Mean to be a Woman in Sports? An Analysis of the Jurisprudence of the Court of Arbitration for Sport’.
• Dr. Michele Krech is Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellow, Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago she is the author of ‘The Misplaced Burdens of ‘Gender Equality’ in Caster Semenya v IAAF: The Court of Arbitration for Sport Attempts Human Rights Adjudication’ and ‘To Be a Woman in the World of Sport: Global Regulation of the Gender Binary in Elite Athletics’.

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.

Registration is available for free at: https://www.asser.nl/education-events/events/?id=4325