Football fans are accustomed to poring over star-studded team sheets and arguing over contentious decisions. But increasingly it is the roster of top barristers on the club payroll and the complex legal wins they secure that are becoming the hot topic in post-match conversations.
Football executives, lawyers and financial advisers agree that one factor in particular has contributed to the current outbreak of “lawfare” across the game: money.
Many now fear the situation risks becoming the new normal for the world’s most popular sport.
In one recent case an independent panel declared this month that the Premier League’s rules on sponsorship were unlawful following a challenge by Manchester City, although it also endorsed the principles underpinning them.
Both sides were quick to declare victory in an arbitration involving a highly unusual number of senior lawyers.
City, which was represented by Lord Pannick KC — who reportedly charges £5,000 an hour — two other King’s Counsels, three additional barristers and law firm Freshfields, said the regulations were no longer valid.
The Premier League, whose team included three KCs led by “Sport Silk of the Year” Adam Lewis KC and four more barristers instructed by Slaughter and May, said amending the rules would suffice.
The two sides are involved in a far larger dispute being heard in central London. The league alleges that City broke financial rules for several years in pursuit of success. The club, which is owned by a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family and has won the English league title in six of the past seven seasons, vehemently denies the accusations.
The fights are just the latest in a string of legal cases that could reshape the football business. The European Court of Justice ruled this month that transfer market regulations written and enforced by Fifa, the game’s global governing body, were unlawful after a challenge by former French international Lassana Diarra.
Fifa has played down the impact of that verdict but Diarra’s lawyers said the legal framework that governs transfers had been “stripped of its heart” by the ECJ, adding: “The system is dead.”
Days later, a joint action against Fifa was launched by players union Fifpro and European Leagues, an umbrella group representing domestic competitions including Spain’s La Liga and the Premier League. The group claims Fifa’s decision to launch a revamped version of the Club World Cup has put player health at risk and is in violation of EU law.
“What we’re seeing increasingly at the moment is competition law being used as a sword rather than a shield”, said Simon Leaf, head of sports law at Mishcon de Reya. “Expect to see more of that.”
At club level, football ownership has been changing with the arrival of private equity, sovereign wealth, hedge funds and billionaires. The influence of institutional capital, say those working in the game, has eroded the old system where disputes were often settled behind closed doors.
Now, said one executive, there are club owners with a fiduciary responsibility to pursue their own narrow interests through any means available. The situation has exacerbated a growing divide between those who see tighter spending rules as vital to sustainability and those who believe they harm competitiveness.
“People have lost that sense of consensus. That’s a pretty dangerous dynamic”, said another senior executive working in European football. “Defining what serves the best interest of the game seems to be disappearing — and it’s created a gap for the lawyers to move in.”
At competition level, football is riven with split objectives, particularly between those who want to make the game more global and those who want to protect domestic competitions.
“We’re eating ourselves. We risk destroying the beautiful product we all love”, said another senior football executive. “It’s such a complicated web now. I don’t know how you go back to how it used to be.”
Football has become fertile territory for big law firms. Clifford Chance is representing City in its battle with the Premier League, and successfully took on Uefa and Fifa over the way they quashed a breakaway league for elite European clubs. The Premier League has tapped Bird & Bird for the City case, and has used Linklaters for other legal matters related to financial rules. Dupont Hissel won the Diarra case, while Garrigues is representing European Leagues in its joint action against Fifa.
The money flowing around football has been rising, leaving the game’s stakeholders — from owners to players and leagues to governing bodies — with more to fight over.
Fifa’s revenue from the Qatar World Cup in 2022 reached $7.5bn, and is expected to top $10bn when the competition is staged in the US, Canada and Mexico in 2026. Uefa, which governs the game in Europe, had revenue of €4.3bn in the 2022-23 season thanks largely to TV money from the Champions League.
“The game has grown so much, but the rules have not kept up”, said Yasin Patel, a barrister specialising in sport at Church Court Chambers. “Those who are investing in football are challenging governing bodies and saying: why can’t we do this?”
Riches have also brought increased scrutiny. The ECJ ruled late last year that both Uefa and Fifa had acted unlawfully when threatening the 12 clubs that attempted to launch the European Super League in 2021. That verdict firmly brought football into the scope of competition law, opening the door to further legal challenges on a range of issues.
Governing bodies have suffered other legal setbacks in the past 12 months. A tribunal appointed by England’s Football Association found in December that Fifa’s planned reforms of regulations for agents was unlawful. And in April, Fifa settled an antitrust case brought by Relevent Sports, a promoter seeking to bring European league fixtures to the US.
The spate of cases comes at an important moment for the football business. In Europe, a long period of rising broadcast income appears to have ended, with several leagues renewing TV deals on reduced rates. That has pushed some club owners to press more forcefully for changes to the status quo — such as through tighter spending restrictions. “It’s easier to keep people happy when the money keeps rolling in”, said one executive in club football.
In a sign of how quickly such issues have escalated, the Premier League’s legal bill rose last season to about £45mn from a typical budget of £8mn.
One optimistic view among football executives is that the hostilities will begin to settle down after the result of the Premier League’s case against City in the new year.
While many expect a chaotic period in the aftermath regardless of the outcome, some hope it will provide a chance to reset. The Diarra case could prove less seismic than billed, English football’s new regulator will be in place and memories of the European Super League case will have faded.
But many in the game fear lawsuits are here to stay. Some of the simmering issues in English football, from parachute payments — the additional money given to clubs relegated from the Premier League — to the TV blackout for 3pm games could be challenged.
Club owners may also be emboldened by Leicester City’s successful appeal after the Premier League accused the club of breaking financial regulations. The result showed that long-standing rules are not watertight and prompted an outpouring of social media messages from Leicester fans lauding their KC in the case, Nick De Marco of Blackstone Chambers.
De Marco later wrote on LinkedIn that “the growth of lawyers in football is not something those like me caused, but is an inevitable result of the complex financial & ownership rules, competition & the money at stake”.
Leicester became the fourth top-tier club in the past two years — after City, Everton and Nottingham Forest — to face action for alleged rule breaches. Barristers from Blackstone chambers were again involved in each of the three cases, while Pinsent Masons acted for Everton, Squire Patton Boggs for Forest and Linklaters for the Premier League.
Meanwhile, the current legal wranglings, and fears of new ones, have caused gridlock inside Premier League board meetings, according to several people familiar with the matter. The huge uncertainty around everything from spending rules to player transfers have also cast a shadow over football in the eyes of investors.
However, some working in the game see the legal battles as a potentially positive process that will help football governance catch up.
One person close to the joint complaint by Fifpro and European Leagues said it was likely to presage a conveyor belt of further actions that could shake up the way the sport is run, adding: “This is a new world order.”
Additional reporting by Samuel Agini