This is a guide to materials on legal issues related to soccer/football.
Photo credit: Jimmy Baikovicius, Lionel Messi World Cup Golden Ball | 140713-9163-jikatu | Flickr
FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association. It is the governing body for world football/soccer, and it is the organizer of the World Cup championship soccer tournaments for men's and women's national teams. Its headquarters are located in Zürich, Switzerland.
FIFA-member associations are grouped together into six (6) regional or continental confederations, which organize national and club competitions.
Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol / Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol (CONMEBOL) (South America)
Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF)
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)
The Football Tribunal takes decisions relating to football-related disputes and regulatory applications, according to the FIFA Statutes and the FIFA Disciplinary Code on member associations, clubs, officials, players, football agents, and match agents.
The Football Tribunal is composed of three (3) chambers:
the Dispute Resolution Chamber: It decides employment-related disputes between players and clubs, and disputes related to training rewards.
the Players Status Chamber: It decides employment-related disputes between coaches and clubs or associations, transfer-related disputes between clubs, and regulatory applications related to the international transfer system and the eligibility of players to participate for representative teams.
the Agents Chamber: It decides disputes involving football agents, following the approval of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), located in Lausanne, Switzerland, hears and resolves appeals.
Appeals against final decisions passed by FIFA’s legal bodies and against decisions passed by confederations, member associations or leagues shall be lodged with CAS within 21 days of receipt of the decision in question (Article 57 FIFA Statutes).
To help you explore the Harvard Libraries' materials related to this subject, below are links to pre-populated searches of the HOLLIS library catalog. These are subject-based searches and will return materials in all languages.
The author wants to express his gratitude to Jennifer Allison, Foreign, Comparative, and International law librarian and fan of this beautiful game, for her fabulous work on the initial version of this research guide.
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