International arbitration in 2025

In July 2024, the National Basketball Association (NBA), the most popular basketball league in the world, announced new media rights deals with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon. The agreements are reportedly worth around US$76bn over 11 years and highlight two wider trends which have transformed the sports industry in recent years:

• first, the significant increase in the value of media rights of premier sports competitions, with the NBA reportedly securing an increase of around US$4bn a year compared to its existing deals with Disney and Warner Bros Discovery; and

• second, the evolving competitive landscape, as new, on-demand streaming platforms challenge the position of legacy broadcasters. For instance, the NBA deals saw the arrival of Amazon’s Prime Video, and the departure of Warner Bros Discovery, home of TNT Sports.

The transformation of the media rights landscape across the industry, alongside specific features of sports, such as fan loyalty, has caught the attention of new and sophisticated investors. Private equity and sovereign wealth funds in particular have made significant investments in sports over the last few years. As a sign of the times, the National Football League (NFL) was the last major US league to change its ownership rules in August 2024 to allow a group of pre-approved private equity funds to acquire minority stakes in NFL teams. Some of the whitelisted funds—such as Arctos, Ares, CVC and Sixth Street—already hold significant interests across a number of other sports, including European football, basketball, baseball, tennis, rugby, cricket and ice hockey. Amid this flurry of activity Goldman Sachs has posed the question: “is sports the next trillion-dollar market?”

Although sports leagues, teams and their fans have generally welcomed the arrival of institutional investors—recall the celebrations on the streets of Newcastle following the announcement that a consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had acquired Newcastle Football Club—there remain clear differences in approach across sports and regions. For example:

• The English Premier League (EPL), the most popular football league in the world, does not prohibit or limit investment by institutional investors, provided they comply with certain fitness and suitability criteria.

• The NFL, on the other hand, allows for limited private equity investment, as noted above, but currently prohibits direct investment by sovereign wealth and pension funds.

The top divisions of German football, the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga, stand out as exceptions to the trend. Following fan protests, the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), which organises the competitions, announced in February 2024 that it had shelved plans to sell a stake in its media rights to a private equity fund for around €1bn. Whether the DFL can afford to buck the trend remains to be seen; notably, the French and Spanish football leagues have recently entered into similar investment deals.

Alongside this increased commercialisation of sport there has been a marked rise in high-value and complex disputes involving governing bodies, leagues, teams, agents, broadcasters and other stakeholders.

Given the typical structure of sports governance—where governing bodies or leagues often exercise significant control over both the organisation of competitions and the economic activities of participants—it is unsurprising that disputes increasingly raise competition law issues. In September 2024, Manchester City successfully argued before an English arbitral tribunal that certain EPL rules violate UK competition law. The decision in this case, in which Freshfields acted for Manchester City, aligns with a growing trend of arbitral tribunals and courts identifying competition law infringements by governing bodies and leagues.

Other notable examples include:

• the decision by an English arbitral tribunal in November 2023 that the imposition of a cap on football agent fees and certain related restrictions breached UK competition law;

• the decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in December 2023 that the rules of the International Skating Union regarding the participation of athletes in unauthorized competitions breached EU competition law. Notably, the ECJ found that the requirement to refer disputes under the rules to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, a common feature in the rules of governing bodies, reinforced the competition law infringement, as CAS awards cannot be reviewed by EU courts;

• the grant of a preliminary injunction by a US federal district court in February 2024 restraining the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) from enforcing a ban on negotiations between prospective college athletes and third parties regarding the compensation for name, image and likeness rights, on the basis that the NCAA’s prohibition likely violates US competition law;

• the decision of a Spanish court in May 2024, following a reference to the ECJ, that UEFA’s rules regarding the authorization of breakaway competitions—which UEFA sought to invoke to prevent the European Super League project in 2021—breached EU competition law;

• the decision of a German arbitral tribunal in September 2024 ordering the DFL to re-auction the Bundesliga’s domestic broadcasting rights following a complaint by DAZN about the lawfulness of the original auction. Although the reasons for the decision have not been made public, it has been reported that competition law issues were central to the complaint; and

• the decision of the ECJ in October 2024 that FIFA’s rules requiring financial compensation from—and imposing additional sporting sanctions on—a footballer who had terminated his player contract without just cause were incompatible with EU laws on free movement and competition.

We anticipate that competition law issues will continue to feature prominently in sports disputes in the UK, EU and US, with a long line of pending cases before arbitral tribunals, national courts, and the ECJ.

Financial fair play (FFP) disputes in European football will also continue to attract significant attention. Recent months have seen an unprecedented number of FFP decisions in the EPL, resulting in points deductions for some (Everton, Nottingham Forest) and exoneration for others (Leicester). In Europe, UEFA fined Barcelona for an intentional FFP breach, with the CAS subsequently rejecting Barcelona’s appeal against the decision.

The transformation of the sports industry has led some stakeholders to explore alternative competition structures. Following the ECJ judgment in the European Super League case, there has been a renewed interest in recent months on proposals for breakaway leagues and competitions across sports. For example:

• In November 2024, it was reported that a promoter was in the process of recruiting leading rugby players to a new “global franchise league” with a start date in 2026.
• In December 2024, it was announced that the promoter of the European Super League project has requested UEFA and FIFA to approve new European football competitions, the “Unify League”, which would involve 96 men’s and 32 women’s teams playing midweek throughout the season. One striking feature of the proposal is that all matches would be streamed for free to fans through the “Unify platform”.
• In January 2025, a new promoter in professional snooker has filed a claim in the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal against the existing promoter of the World Snooker Tour and the world governing body for snooker and billiards. The new promoter alleges that it has been prevented from running competitions involving professional snooker players in breach of UK competition law.

We anticipate that new proposals for breakaway leagues and competitions, as well as related legal disputes, will continue to be an important theme in 2025 and beyond.

Another much anticipated development in the UK concerns the establishment of a new regulator for English football, created by Parliament. The proposal stems from a government review that highlighted “the inability of the existing regulatory structure to address the new and complex structural challenges created by the scale of modern professional men’s football.”

The draft legislation for the new regulator is currently making its way through Parliament and is expected to be enacted later this year.

Notably, the draft legislation envisages that appeals against decisions by the new regulator will be referred to the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal where proceedings are generally conducted in public. By contrast, governing bodies in the UK and elsewhere usually provide that regulatory appeals are referred to confidential arbitration in the final instance, although some arbitration rules, such as the rules of CAS and Sport Resolutions, provide for the publication of an appeal award unless both parties agree to keep the award confidential.

The increased transparency regarding the actions of the new regulator will be welcomed by some, but not all, stakeholders.