By Andrew Warshaw
July 9 – An investment company supporting Third Party Ownership will challenge FIFA’s global ban on the practise at what could be a ground-breaking hearing in Brussels next week.
Doyen Sports will be represented by, among others, Jean Louis Dupont, the lawyer who successfully defended journeyman footballer Jean-Marc Bosman in the mid-1990s which led to the so-called Bosman ruling that changed the face of the transfer system.
Dupont, who is also involved in a separate unconnected case challenging UEFA’s financial fair play regulations, will be part of Doyen’s legal counsel arguing that the TPO ban, which came into effect a few weeks ago, goes against a number of the European Union’s fundamental freedoms and national competition rules.
The public hearing takes place at the Brussels Court of First Instance on Monday where Doyen will defend its TPO model against FIFA’s unilateral ban.
UEFA and FIFA may not always be comfortable bedfellows but both have denounced TPO and are determined to stamp it out for good to stop outside investors partially owning transfer rights.
TPO is particularly rife with agents and clubs in South America and parts of Europe, including Spain and Portugal, who claim that without it, some players would be unaffordable especially for smaller clubs. Critics say the practise encourages pure profit-making and drives money out of the game in what UEFA have described as a kind of modern slavery.
But in a statement Doyen said it had provided financial assistance to clubs “to allow them to build strong teams that challenge for some of the most important trophies in world football” and argued FIFA’s ban “will deprive clubs of a credible, sustainable source of finance and further tilt the competitive balance in favour of the richest clubs in the world.”
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