LITIGATION TRENDS 2025 | 121 T O C E M P E S G A N T I I P C A P R O W C S P O R T C O N T A C T I N T A P P P A T C C L S E C particular circumstances – and therefore restricting economic competition. These arbitral proceedings also took place at the IDCR in mid-2024 and a redacted version of the award was published in October 2024. The ruling held that the APT rules were necessary to guarantee financial integrity and fair economic competition, emphasising the importance of assessing commercial deals with associated parties at fair market value. Crucially, however, the Premier League failed to establish that Man City’s sponsorship deals were not at fair market value. The dispute rumbles on and at a consequentials hearing in January 2025, the tribunal found in Man City’s favor that the unlawful elements of the APT rules could not be severed from the rest, rendering the rules void and unenforceable as a whole. As a result, this is likely to encourage other clubs to aggressively challenge rules unfavourable to them. In parallel, Man City issued separate arbitral challenges in January 2025 against the Premier League’s initial attempts to cure these defects by amending the rules in November 2024. However, these proceedings have been rendered redundant due to the entire suite of APT rules being declared void and unenforceable. The Floodgates For a long time, the governing bodies and regulators of professional sport – in many cases, often the same undertakings – were able to decide unilaterally the manner by which, and by what rules, professional sport was organised, operated and regulated. Participants had little to no influence. However, with the growth of professional sport, its meteoric increase in commercial value and the emergence of sovereign owners in the sphere of professional football, the tide is turning. In particular, recent disputes have evidenced an increased willingness of participants in professional sport to challenge not only the governing bodies and regulators of the sport, but also the rules and regulations that are imposed upon them. As a consequence, the Premier League’s spend on legal disputes totalled £45 million last season; a staggering increase on previous years. Governing bodies are now realizing: how does one regulate football clubs with sovereign resources and legal teams that would rival any corporation? Naturally, competition law appears to provide the most fertile ground for launching such disputes, leading to press reports that Premier League executives are lobbying the UK Government to grant the sport legislative protection from competition principles. That is highly unlikely to happen, and the football clubs’ lawyers will undoubtedly find alternative grounds for challenge in any event. Claims of Discrimination and Misconduct in Sports College sports have had to grapple with lawsuits alleging discrimination that stretch beyond the bounds of compensation. Among the most hot button issues has been the NCAA’s rules regarding transgender athletes’ participation in sports. Amidst extensive debates in legislatures and the public sphere, in 2024, the dispute spilled into the courts. In March, cis-gender swimmer Riley Gaines and other athletes filed a lawsuit against the NCAA and several colleges. The lawsuit claimed that the NCAA violated Title IX by permitting University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, to compete in the NCAA national swimming championship in 2022. Thomas was eligible under the NCAA’s policy in effect at the time, which permitted transgender women to compete if they tested below testosterone serum limits. The NCAA subsequently amended its policies to take a sportby-sport approach under which its rules would align with the policies implemented by the world or national governing body of each sport. A follow-on suit was filed by several of Thomas’s fellow Penn swimmers in January 2025. In the fall, eleven current and former female volleyball players sued the S T CROSS-PRACTICE FOCUS Sports 120 | Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
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