The issue № 15 of the international journal “Football Legal”

On July 14, the 15th issue of the Football Legal Journal has been released.

The 15th issue serves as a collection of best practices, narratives and legal insights to analyze the current trends in how identity shapes the football world.

Partner at SILA International Lawyers Georgi Gradev and Associate at SILA Márton Kiss published articles «Sporting Succession and the Due Diligence Requirement», «A Classical Case of Bullying and Harassing an Unwanted Player; Lack of Specific Request to Mitigate the Compensation» and «The International Dimension in a Coaching Dispute; COVID-19 as a Reason to Delay Salaries» in this issue.

In their article titled «Sporting Succession and the Due Diligence Requirement» Georgi and Márton talked about the case when the Sole Arbitrator decided that the new CSKA Sofia is the old CSKA Sofia’s sporting successor and can thus be held liable to comply with the former club’s financial obligations. However, the Sole Arbitrator found that the Creditor did not act with due diligence in recovering her debt in the old CSKA Sofia’s insolvency proceedings. That is why he ruled not to sanction the new CSKA Sofia.

In the article «A Classical Case of Bullying and Harassing an Unwanted Player; Lack of Specific Request to Mitigate the Compensation» they talked about a classical case of bullying and harassing a player a club wants to get rid of. The club adopted a strategy to force the player out of the club by sending him first to train alone and then with young amateur players. It also deprived the player of several benefits and excluded him from first-team communications. Ultimately, when the case was already before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the club filed arguments regarding mitigated damages via the player’s salary under his new contract but omitted to make a specific request for relief in this respect. Therefore, the Panel decided to uphold the FIFA decision and not to mitigate the damages.

And in their article «The International Dimension in a Coaching Dispute; COVID-19 as a Reason to Delay Salaries» Georgi and Márton talked about the cases when Bulgarian club PFC Levski Sofia (PFC Levski) decided to get rid of the coaching staff for financial reasons soon after the club’s new owner had arrived in the club. However, instead of finding an amicable solution, the club pushed the coaches to appear before FIFA for a dispute resolution. PFC Levski hoped that the coaches would be deemed Bulgarian citizens and that FIFA will not retain jurisdiction over the dispute. However, FIFA rejected all these arguments and issued decisions in favor of the coaches.