Advocate General questions whether FIFA Regulations are compliant with EU Law

On 30 April 2024, Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) Maciej Szpunar delivered the Opinion in a request for preliminary ruling held by the CJEU, involving a former professional football player based in Paris, France (“BZ”) and FIFA^[1] (also commonly referred to as the Diarra case). This case is yet another dispute in which compatibility of specific FIFA regulations with the European Union (“EU”) law is questioned^[2]. This time, CJEU is asked to take a closer look at the provisions of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (“RSTP”) concerning:

• joint and several responsibility of the new club for payment of compensation due from the player to his former club as a consequence of terminating a contract without just cause (Article 17 paras. 1–2 of the RSTP);
• sporting sanctions that may be imposed on a club inducing a breach of contract by the player (Article 17 para. 4 of the RSTP); and
• issuance of the International Transfer Certificate (“ITC”) in case of a contractual dispute regarding termination of contract (Article 9.1 of the RSTP; Article 8.2 para. 4b) and para. 7 of Annexe 3 to the RSTP).

The Opinion, although quite controversial, speaks against compatibility of these rules with the EU law, namely with:

• Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) (Freedom of movement of workers in the EU),
• Article 105 of the TFEU (Restriction of competition), and
• Surprisingly, Article 15 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“Charter”) (Freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work).

In this article, the authors analyze the various aspects of the Opinion.

The full Opinion is available here.