Third-party Ownership in Football

Abstract

"Third Party Ownership" is one of the restraint of Trade Law in Sport, whereby a third party acquires all or part of the player's economic rights for financing the player or injecting cash into the club. Contrary to the common perception in the field, this mechanism does not grant the decision-making power of the contract to a third party, and therefore, this will not lead to a type of slavery or curtail a player’s freedom. As the result, it will not result in the third party’s interference in implementation of the contract which is in breach of Article 960 of the Civil Code and Article 18 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players. In practice, various countries adopted different approached to the validity of this mechanism. The present study shows that by relying on economic efficiency and justice this mechanism merely entitles a third party to the player’s incomes in his future transfers without any unfair wealth transfer to third parties. FIFA regulations do not prohibit any investment by a third party, but they have banned him from influencing over club’s decisions. The mechanism could be introduced as a business model for football.

Keywords

• third-party ownership
• restraint of trade
• economic rights
• liberty of contract principle
• football industry