This is a crucial decision for the world of sport and for the RFC Seraing: this Friday morning, the Court of Justice of the European Union clearly called into question the authority of the arbitral sentences of the Sports Arbitral Tribunal (CAS) in the territory of the Union. The Court has indeed considered that the national courts must be able to exercise complete jurisdictional control, even on so -called definitive sentences of the CAS, based in Switzerland.
At the base of this dispute, an alleged offense of the Seresian club to the rules which prohibit third property (TPO), or the possibility for investors to buy all or part of the economic rights of a professional football player to collect a percentage of a future transfer. FIFA had condemned Seraing to a fine of 150,000 Swiss francs (136,743 euros) and a ban on transferring for four Mercatos.
The sanction had been confirmed by the Sports Arbitral Tribunal and by the Swiss Federal Court, two jurisdictions located in Switzerland, such as FIFA, and therefore outside the European Union. To challenge its decisions, FIFA requires indeed resorting to the arbitration of the job, which the advice of the RFC Seraing Jean-Louis Dupont et Martin Hirsel call “as”procedural deception“.
