The German Football Association and the judiciary: Great friendship will no longer come of it. On Thursday, the district court of Dortmund added another chapter to this tense long-term relationship. It imposed a fine of 150,000 euros on the DFB and, in the event that this could not be collected, one day of imprisonment for every 1,500 euros.
The reason for this is a legal dispute over the implementation of new player agent regulations called FFAR (Fifa Football Agent Regulations), which the world governing body Fifa wants to come into force worldwide from October 1st. The LG Dortmund put a stop to this request in May with a temporary injunction; Accordingly, neither Fifa nor the DFB, as the national representative of the world association, may implement or apply the new FFAR mediator law. But the DFB, as the judiciary now sees it, does not comply with this prohibition by the court.
When asked by SZ, the DFB said it thought this decision was wrong and would appeal against it. Irrespective of this, he will “of course continue to observe the obligations imposed in the May judgment”.
For the Dortmund judges, the new regulations violate antitrust law
Background to the dispute: The Dortmund judges see clear violations of antitrust law in the FFAR regulations. Among other things, Fifa wants to impose a licensing requirement for all agents, upper limits for consultant commissions and the restriction of multiple representations. In addition, there is an original new financial system: all industry payments are to go through a Fifa clearing house in the future. The world association has acquired a banking license for this purpose.
Since then, legal disputes have been raging across Europe between Fifa and the powerful player advisors and their associations. The latter had even threatened the well-paid Fifa board members around Gianni Infantino, who recently also included DFB President Bernd Neuendorf, with personal consequences from the US judiciary. At the same time, the Supreme Sports Court Cas in Lausanne recently issued a memorable verdict: the arbitral tribunal, without having much cartel competence to show, declared the Fifa regulations to be okay and applicable. Fifa publicly celebrated an alleged “legal certainty” that the referees had created.
The agents’ lobby immediately countered via its association “The Football Forum” (TFF) that it regarded this Cas procedure only as a staging controlled by the world association – especially with regard to the new and factually completely meaningless consultant association, which the Cas complaint had formally brought.
The judges complain that the DFB is partly incorrect in informing about the verdict
The judgment of the Regional Court of Dortmund in May is provisional; an objection by the DFB and Fifa will be heard in January at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. But the LG Mainz had already referred the clarification of the FFAR-Causa to the European Court of Justice, also on the basis of a complaint from the consultants. The colleagues in Dortmund also refer to this.
In their current decision, the judges rule that the DFB does not comply with the “duties to refrain” ordered in May’s ruling and that it even provided incorrect information in some cases; specifically about the effectiveness of the judgment. The court explicitly refers to a circular that states that the LG’s ban is limited “only to agreements made under German law” between agents and players, coaches and clubs “resident in Germany”. According to the resolution, that was far too short-sighted. In fact, the ban extends to every German participation, no matter where: The only decisive factor is the “market place” of the agent’s service, not the question “where the actors are based or which national law a contract is subject to”.
Otherwise, the ban could easily be circumvented by agreeing on foreign law during the transfer. This statement by the Dortmund judges is highly explosive if the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court should confirm the LG judgment in January. It is already the case that every player agency could open a branch in Germany so that it is no longer subject to the FFAR – even if a professional only moves from Spain to Italy or France to England.
It could now also be exciting to see how the transfer business was handled in the current period – and whether legal chaos may now occur at some clubs.