Asters' Partner and Head of Sports Law Oleksandr Volkov spoke at the conference “Sport & Law: Win-Win Strategy”. The event, organised by Legal Practice weekly, took place on 10 December 2024 in Kyiv.
During the session dedicated to the peculiarities of sports dispute resolution, participants discussed the mechanisms for challenging disciplinary sanctions and anti-doping investigations by national sports dispute resolution authorities and international institutions.
Speaking about the specifics of football justice in Ukraine, Oleksandr Volkov noted that “FIFA and UEFA are very large, closed ecosystems. And these ecosystems have created an effective system of internal justice that operates separately from the rest of the world”.
He divided disputes in the football sector into disciplinary disputes and those relating to the fulfilment of contracts, compensations, solidarity payments etc. Oleksandr emphasized that the accreditation procedure for national dispute resolution chambers, which are responsible for settling the disputes between football players, representatives and football clubs, is currently underway. He pointed out that from 1 January 2025, these chambers will operate only with FIFA accreditation.
During the conference, speakers also discussed:
- stages and prospects for the development of sports law in Ukraine, legal regulation of the sports system reform
- countering attempts to drag athletes of the aggressor country to international competitions
- conflicts in sports federations
- the role of athletes' commissions in protecting the rights of athletes in Ukraine and worldwide
- legal support of transfers, peculiarities of the legal status of athletes, coaches and other participants in sports legal relations, contracts with athletes
- intellectual property rights in the field of sports activities, rights to broadcast sports events
- advertising contracts in the field of sports
- sponsorship of sports events in Ukraine and abroad
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Asters is the largest full-service law firm in Ukraine with offices in Kyiv, Brussels, London, and Washington, D.C., and access to over 125 jurisdictions through a well-developed network of partner law firms.
