Mark Hovell

Partner, Mills & Reeve LLP

Mark is a highly experienced sports lawyer and insolvency practitioner, heading up Mills & Reeve's sports sector. He specialises in regulatory, governance, commercial and financial matters, across all sports, both in the UK and across the world. Additionally he sits regularly as an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and The FA's regulatory commissions.

Over the past twenty years, Mark has advised hundreds of athletes on their sporting contracts, image rights, and endorsement deals. As a noted insolvency expert, he has also advised nearly sixty football and rugby clubs in insolvencies and restructurings.

He is also an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where he has been selected to hear over two hundred cases. As a result of his experience and reputation as an arbitrator, he was selected to the CAS ad-hoc committee for the 2010 and 2014 Commonwealth Games. He was also selected as one of twelve arbitrators to the ad-hoc panel for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Mark is also on the UK’s Sports Resolutions tribunal panel and is accredited to the UK’s National Anti-Doping Panel (NADP).

Mark regularly lectures at universities and conferences all over the world, including London, New York, Madrid, Rome, and Timisoara. He is also a trustee of the James Milner Foundation, an editorial board member at LawInSport, the chair of the pro-manchester Sports Industry Group and was previously a non-executive director at the Manchester Football Association.