Off to Neuchatel for the final act of the FIFA Master

As the SDA Bocconi Module was successfully completed, the FIFA Master 21ST EDITION class said goodbye to Milan and headed to lovely Neuchatel, Switzerland, and straight to the heart of international sport. After a well-deserved spring break and despite the pandemic turmoil, the module on Sport Law officially began on Tuesday, 6th April. Before we dig more into the agenda of the Law Module at Universite de Neuchatel (UniNe) and as we take over the narration for the third and final act, we would like to thank our colleagues and former class representatives for the amazing job done so far in tracking and sharing the FIFA Master journey. We are now getting closer to the grand finale and you do not want to miss it!

Let us pick up where we left off, on our way to Neuchatel, Sport Law and lovely lake life.

Firstly, we are genuinely grateful and happy to confirm that the module kicked off, and is smoothly continuing, in-person. With the gradual relaxation of the anti-COVID measures in Switzerland and thanks to the support of the CIES and the Scientific Committee, the FIFA Master students are able to physically attend classes and enjoy the social interactions with professors and guest speakers. Credits to e-learning, but nothing can beat the good old University life, especially if it is the Université de Neuchatel, with its century-old history and its beautiful buildings spread throughout the city, from the lake side up to the hill (guess our students’ favourite).

I guess you may be thinking “Everything is fine until you have to deal with Law”. Well, that was a common feeling, but after the first month spent at UniNe and thanks to the outstanding contributions from our guest speakers and professors, the FIFA Master class could not be more engaged and passionate.

Our smooth introduction to Sport Law was greatly facilitated by Prof. T. Probst and Prof. Denis Oswald who provided us with a general overview of Swiss law and its relevancy in the sports context. The flexible legal system was a great incentive for many international sport federations to establish their headquarters in Switzerland, enjoying a liberal framework and great economic freedom under the Swiss Law of Associations.

Our inspiring meeting and time with Matthias Berg, German Paralympic medallist and qualified lawyer, was a blessing. Matthias shared with the class the great and difficult times of his life and career as a Paralympic athlete, challenging us to truly embrace diversity and the endless opportunities that come with it. The Paralympic movement is the pinnacle of sporting values: courage, determination, inspiration and equality. Matthias gave us a taste of what it really means to be a hero.

Taking a step further into Sport Governance, and in order to understand how international sport organizations function behind their statues and bylaws, we had the pleasure to host a prestigious round table attended by, in no particular order, Pierre Cornu, former chief counsel, integrity and regulatory affairs at UEFA, James Carr, Head of Administration & Projects at ASOIF, Emilio García Silvero, Chief legal and Compliance Officer at FIFA, and legendary Prof. Denis Oswald.

The panellists shared their individual presentations and experiences, and brilliantly addressed our questions.

It was great to learn from P. Cornu and his insights from his experiences within sport organizations’ disciplinary bodies, including doping, bribery, and match-fixing. The theme of ethical issues in Governance is a crucial topic and the sport industry is nowadays under strict scrutiny. Key takeaways for the class were to be honest to yourself and respect your job.

J.Carr helped us understand the impact and benefits of good governance for sport international federations (IF), and, even more so, the tremendous reputational and economic damages that the IF, and many other stakeholders, may suffer in case of poor governance and non-compliance.

To round out an amazing day, we had the honour of hearing from Dr. Emilio García Silvero. During an inspiring session, he took us behind the scenes of the FIFA reform process and the ever-varied and crucial work of the FIFA Legal department. This was followed by one of the year’s most passionate Q&As, in which Emilio, a law scholar at heart, took questions on a wide range of topics from the class, whilst showing us, with undeniable charm, how the key principles of transparency, integrity and authenticity underpin everything FIFA does. The day ended with an amazing, social distanced gathering by the lake with some of the guest speakers. Special thanks to Nejat Haciömeroglu, our FIFA Master Course Academic Coordinator, for his ongoing support and coordination, including this lovely post panel happy hour at the lake.

While enjoying the lake life and sunny weather, we had the opportunity to hear from many other sport industry professionals and executives. We would like to thank each and every one of them for their time, passion and unique perspective.  H. Lichtner General Secretary of the IIHF, explained to us what it takes to run an international federation; N. Crettex, an Alumni of the FIFA Master programme, and J. Wappler, both from FIFA Professional Football Department revealed to us the complex ecosystem involving key football stakeholders and the objectives behind the Football  Stakeholders Committee; B. Schwab (World Player Association), J. Perlemuter (World League Forum), A. Colombo (European Leagues), represented the main stakeholders’ interests respectively from the players and leagues perspective (heard about Super League yet?); W. Lambrecht (FC Barcelona) challenged us with contractual negotiation exercises, to put theory into practice; D. Cipullo from Tigertail showed us the reality of working in a dynamic sporting environment, outlining the differences between the European and American sports models.

The second week of the module ended with 2 days of full immersion into the UEFA Club Licensing System and Financial Fair-Play (FFP). Aleš Zavrl, UEFA Head of Club Licensing, and Michel Jacquemoux, FFP Manager, explained how the Club Licensing System and the FFP were designed respectively with the aim to promote and continuously improve the standards of football, the integrity of competitions and long-term viability of European football. It was then the turn of D. Facchinetti (Club Financial Control Body Officer) and W. Mc Auliffe (Senior Legal Counsel), respectively, who put us in the shoes of the Club Financial Control Body with the task to resolve and rule over hypothetical club breaches of UEFA FFP rules.

With a sunny start in the third week, the FIFA Master Class had a great kick-off session on Monday, with regards to Career Development. First, João Frigerio, FMA Executive Director, introduced us to the iWorkinSport Virtual Job Fair, explaining how to access the Job Fair and provided us with some detailed information on the day of the event. Then, P. Albrecht, from SRI, presented us with some key data on the opportunities across the sport landscape and was accompanied by colleagues, that followed up with additional presentations. Finally, the day continued with individual CV coaching interviews by Vanessa Tribet, from Outdooria. As the week progressed, we faced our first deadline to submit our written assignments.

It was then time for a pleasant lecture on Swiss Labour Law in the Sporting Contex, by D. Maegerle, a Swiss-based lawyer, in the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, which is located right by the lake (you must be thinking of the amazing view we were able  to enjoy during the class… and yes, you’re right!). During this lecture, we got to discuss the legal fundamentals in Sporting Context and the elements of the employment contract.

Another highlight of the week was three full sessions with J. Kitching, current Director of Football Regulatory at FIFA and also Alumni of the FIFA Master programme 12th edition. During these sessions, we dived deep into the FIFA Regulations (RSTP and RWI) and ongoing reform packages, including the introduction and implementation of the FIFA Clearing House, a redesigned system for training rewards distribution, the viability of a new license system for football agents and the latest amendments on Sporting Nationality. James provided the class with concrete examples and challenged the students with engaging questions, turning the virtual experience into a very dynamic and interactive discussion. Furthermore, we highly appreciated James’s availability in delivering the sessions and brilliantly addressing a final and intense Q&A session directly from Australia and at such a late time for him (due to the huge difference of time zones). It is all about truly global football!

Taking the discussion on Sporting Nationality a step further, we then had the chance to have a lecture from Y. Hafner, from UEFA, whereby we discussed, the differences between the concepts of nationality vs. citizenship, state vs. country/territory and qualification vs. eligibility. The day then concluded with a presentation by F. Roitman, an Alumni of the course and founder of the CIES Sports Intelligence, who briefly introduced us to a study conducted on the Intermediation Market and Transfers in Football. To end the week we had an interesting on line session presented by Charles Frémont, an Alumni of the course and Executive Director of Le Tremplin, Paris & Co, which provided us with an insight on the sports innovation and incubation platform of Le Tremplin, which enabled us to assess the pitch of various start-ups as if we were potential investors. Finally, we closed the week with an FMA Session, in the Faculté de Droit, in which we got to meet part of the FMA Committee. The present members of the FMA Committee elaborated on the FMA’s mission duties and responsibilities. After the session, we all got to convene by the lake. We would like to thank MD, João, Sara, Kristina and Marcelo for your availability. We genuinely enjoyed it and we hope to meet you and the remaining FMA Committee members very soon!

Over the weekend, we enjoyed a well-organized, sunny and social distanced adventure in the Parc Aventure Chaumont, in which we challenged ourselves across several outdoor activities, such as the tree top climbing and zip lining. We take this chance to thank Aude Baraglioli, our FIFA Master Administrative Coordinator, for herentire organization and support throughout the year, and hereby also take the chance to congratulate our lovely classmate, Dilara Yasaçan, for managing to finish the most challenging parcours of the tree top climbing activity!

After three insightful weeks of amazing guest speakers and classes, crowned by the adventure at the Parc Chaumont, we started the final week of April with an interesting in-class presentation by C. Ramoni, a Swiss-based lawyer from Libra Law, who guided us on the different personality rights in the sporting context. Later, we had a virtual presentation from A.G. Bruniewoud from FIFPro, who not only shared crucial information on FIFPro’s activity, structure, and governance, but also introduced us to some practical examples on initiatives organized by FIFPro or in collaboration with other organizations, such as FIFA.

It was then time for some SDA Bocconi throwback moments (as we got to discuss numbers again), with J-M. Hainaut, Partner, Business Tax Advisory at Ernst and Young, who presented to us a lecture on International Taxation in the sporting context. The class was divided into different groups, to discuss distinct case scenarios and to advise on the best taxation method for a given scenario, taking into consideration the sporting context of the athlete. This was a remarkably interesting and dynamic concept, which the class enjoyed to its fullest. This was followed by a presentation from R. Levy, again an Alumni of the course, and who is now a Swiss-based lawyer and Partner at Probst Partner AG law firm. He provided us with an insight and overview on the Player Status Disputes at FIFA, providing us also with important key information on how to address a claim, to whom and under which conditions. The session was then wrapped up with some guidelines for the arbitration exercise (the first FIFA Master moot court of the class).

After having enjoyed a day in which we had time to attend a SportsPro live event, we got back to in-person classes, to attend a lecture from M. Diaconu, Associate Professor of the University of Neuchâtel, on the European Policy for Sport. During this lecture we got to discuss, among other topics, the basics of the European Model of Sports, when compared to other models, as well as to understand how the European regulatory environment impacts sports. We then had a chance to attend (virtually) an interview conducted by Dr. Kevin-Tallec Marston, Research Fellow & Academic Project Manager at CIES, whose questions were directed to Nic Coward, who has held many illustrious titles including former Premier League General Secretary. During this interview, several questions proposed by the students were answered by Mr Coward and we even got to discuss some of the topics of our Final Projects, as well as the topic of moment, the breakaway European Super League.

It was then time for our first field visit! We enjoyed a full day presentation by UEFA representatives, on different and interesting topics. The UEFA session started with Valérie Robert-Tissot, Management and Promotion Assistant, UEFA Academy, that provided us with insights on UEFA’s educational programmes, and was then followed by Guillaume Poisson, Head of EURO 2020 Host Country Projects, who guided us through a detailed description of the UEFA EURO 2020 and its new format, as well as on the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a short coffee break, it was then time for a presentation from Roman Putsch, Head of Marketing Activities, who elaborated on the marketing strategy and initiatives of UEFA. After the lunch break, we resumed our (virtual) field visit with a presentation from two FIFA Master Alumni, Dan Whymark, Women’s Football Development Coordinator, and Alyssa Lagonia, Women’s Football Assistant, that not only provided us with invaluable insights on the growth and development of Women’s Football at UEFA, but also provided us with some practical information on the trends and perspectives of Women’s Football. Overall, we thank UEFA for their great efforts in providing us with this full day of presentations.

Finally, it is important to mention that the FIFA Master 21st Edition participated for the first time in a Hackathon contest, that was organized and hosted by SportsPro Media in April. The students had an extremely busy weekend, with little to no sleep, but in the end were successful, as one of the teams – the Justice League (Dilara Yasaçan, Lorenzo Mazzone, Malin Vestin, Rebecca Jardim de Barros and Zeina Hamarsha) was awarded with overall 3rd place and also won the Most Financially Sustainable Concept. Huge congratulations to this group!

See you in May for another update on our FIFA Master journey!

Francesca Ingletto and Fabio Figueiras - Neuchâtel 2020-21 Class Reps

FIFA Master - International Master in Management, Law and Humanities of Sport, ranked No.1 Course in Europe 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 by the SportBusiness International global rankings.

Organised by CIES in partnership with De Montfort University (United Kingdom), SDA Bocconi School of Management (Italy) and the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland).