EMILIANO SALA – A REVIEW EXPLORING THE EXTENTS OF THE SANCTITY OF CONTRACTS IN THE WORLD OF FOOTBALL
The January 2019 winter transfer window in Europe was another exciting one in the footballing world with players moving in different directions, across different clubs in deals running into millions. One which was supposed to be a routine transaction involved an Argentine footballer, Emiliano Sala who appeared to have completed a move from FC Nantes in the French Ligue 1 to Welsh outfit, Cardiff City FC in the English Premier League as published on the latter’s website[1], in a deal worth €17,000,000. When the player was unfortunately killed in an ill-fated air crash across the English Channel, two days after the transfer was completed, it quickly swung into a full-on legal battle between the two clubs, when Cardiff City FC refused to pay the first installment of the transfer fee. This legal dispute does not seem to have ended even with the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) delivering its decision on the 26th of August 2022, affirming the decision of the FIFA adjudicatory body on the 25th of September 2019,[2] which had to resolve issues bordering on the sanctity of the contract between the two football clubs. In this article, which is mostly a commentary, I highlight terms of the dispute, considering the extent of the sanctity of contracts in football and the doctrine of pacta sunct Servanda (Agreements must be kept) as shown in this dispute as they relate to jurisdiction and the independence of adjudicatory procedures relating to football contracts.
THE ROLE OF THE AGREEMENT ON THE JURISDICTION OF THE CONCLUDED ADJUDICATORY BODIES
Unlike conventional courts and like most arbitration bodies, adjudication of disputes in sports are usually carried out according to the agreement of the parties. The nature of certain disputes may however confer jurisdiction on regulatory and sanctioning bodies. Jurisdiction of the FIFA PSC[3] bureau in this case was disputed at the preliminary stage. Cardiff City FC contended that the relevant clause of the agreement between the two clubs[4] had referred any dispute arising from the contract to the wrong body of FIFA, the Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) instead of the Players’ Status Committee (PSC) and consequently urged FIFA to decline jurisdiction. This would have conferred jurisdiction on the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) as the adjudicatory body of first instance by invoking the original jurisdiction of CAS. They relied on the same Clause 8.2…
