11KBW advise and represent clients in the sports sector across a wide range of matters. We have experience of advising and representing players and athletes, clubs, officials, intermediaries/agents, regulatory and governing bodies, and sponsors. We act across the whole range of sports related litigation including disciplinary commissions, arbitrations (including Rule K and EFL arbitrations) and proceedings in the Commercial Court, the King’s Bench Division and the Employment Tribunal.
At 11KBW we have unique experience of the legal fields that underpin sports governance and disputes: public, employment, data protection and privacy, commercial, human rights, and professional discipline and regulatory law. We are ideally placed to service the full breadth of sports law work.
We are regularly involved in litigation or disputes across a diverse range of sports, including football, motor racing, rugby, cricket, basketball, tennis, boxing and polo.
Members appear in important cases across sports law, including recently acting for:
- A Premier League football club defending Financial Fair Play charges.
- Yorkshire County Cricket Club in relation to claims of race discrimination made by Azeem Rafiq.
- The English Football League defending a challenge by Cardiff City arising out of the failure to pay Emiliano Sala’s transfer fee on time.
- Acting on both sides of a dispute between Aston Martin Racing and its former Team Principal and CEO Otmar Szafnauer.
- CBS in a claim brought by British heavyweight boxer Dillan Whyte concerning the publication of articles disclosing the fact that Mr Whyte had tested positive for a banned substance prior to a major fight.
- A Premier League football club on the termination of the contract of a famous player.
- A League One Club in dispute with a Premier League Club regarding the appropriate sum to be awarded for the training and development of a young player who had represented England at youth level.
Members of chambers also sit on, and undertake work for, various major sports law panels including: –
The Court of Arbitration for Sport
The Basketball Arbitral Tribunal
The FA General Appeals Panel
The League Managers Association Commercial Law Panel
Sport Resolutions’ Panel of Arbitrators
The National Safeguarding Panel
The English Football League arbitration appeal panels
