Ms Tamara Ćapeta, Advocate General at the Court of Justice of the EU, considers in her Opinion presented on Thursday 16 January in Case C-600/23 that direct access to national courts, with full judicial review in the light of all the provisions of Union law, must be granted to all those involved in sport who are subject to the dispute resolution system of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), notwithstanding a final award by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
A Belgian football club, Royal Football Club Seraing, has signed a contract with a Maltese company, Doyen Sports 1, for the transfer of the economic rights of several players. FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee considered that this agreement violated its rules prohibiting the ownership of players’ economic rights by third parties. The committee imposed a number of disciplinary measures on the Belgian club, which were upheld by CAS and the Swiss Federal Court, where FIFA has its headquarters.
The Maltese company, believing that FIFA’s rules infringed European law, brought proceedings before the Belgian courts. Those courts declined jurisdiction.
Following an appeal, the Belgian Court of Cassation sought guidance from the CJEU as to whether EU law precluded the application of such national provisions to an arbitration award that had only been reviewed by a court of a non-EU Member State.
The Advocate General states that EU Member States must ensure that they grant direct access to a court with jurisdiction to carry out a judicial review of the compatibility of FIFA’s rules with EU law, even if a CAS arbitration award applying those rules has been upheld by the Swiss Federal Court.
To read the opinion, go to https://aeur.eu/f/f35 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)