In the latest article for The Legal Pitch, Toby Newton-Dunn sits down with world leading international Sports Lawyer, the CEO of Ruiz Huerta & Crespo Sports Lawyers, Juan de Dios Crespo Pérez. We discuss anecdotes from Juan's career, such as working with world class footballers such as Lionel Messi, Neymar and Zinedine Zidane as well as understanding the qualities needed to become a successful sports lawyer.
Juan de Dios with David Beckham at England vs Iran, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, source Instagram
TND: Good afternoon Juan, thank you for joining me today for this interview. To start things off, let's begin with something simple and straightforward - why law and why sports law?
JDD: When I was young I wanted to be a journalist but at the University of Valencia there was no faculty of journalism at the time, only at private universities which I didn’t have the money for, so I asked myself: “what was similar to journalism?”. Writing, thinking, talking – Law. It was a choice that I didn’t have in mind at first but then became my passion. In regards to sports law, when I was young I used to play lots of sports, rugby, judo, football but when I was around 18/19 I used to play futsal (indoor football). I was in the second year of my law degree and was approached to join the disciplinary committee as a member, despite being a player. After several decisions, people started to call me and say they were not happy with my decisions, but they were happy with how I made my decisions and how I could interpret the law. It was this moment when I realised how much I love to write and understand the law which led to the opportunity to become the sole arbitrator of the Valencian Community region for futsal and a member of the board. I then started to go step by step into some other sports, such as female football in 1995/96 when Levante C.F. were champions of Spain, and also in 1993 I had the chance to become an external lawyer of Valencia C.F. and the rest is history!
TND: What has been your biggest challenge as a sports lawyer so far and how did you overcome it?
JDD: The first big one I had was the one of Predrag Mijatović, ex player of Valencia who transferred to Real Madrid. His image rights company then started to ask for the money, however because he had left Valencia to join Real Madrid, and therefore terminated his employment contract with Valencia, the image rights contract is also terminated and no longer had any legal consequences as the player has signed a new contract with a new club. It was my first big case and we won that.
I have been involved in some other really high-profile cases such as the case of Bueno-Rodriguez, the bosman ruling of South America which allowed players to leave their club upon the expiration of their contract and sign for another club for free. Also, the Messi case when he swore badly at the referee which saw him banned for 4 matches, we still managed to overturn the 4 matches he was sanctioned for.
My specialism does not lie with transfers, and it is not my main aim/aspiration, however I have done some transfers over my career. For instance, the one of Zidane from Juventus to Real Madrid and again more recently, Neymar to PSG and Aguero from Manchester City to Barcelona. But as I mentioned, I am not trying to work in that field, my areas of specialism are with litigation, mainly with the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) in Switzerland. This is my real passion.
TND: When you are approached to work with world class players such as Messi, Zidane, Aguero, Neymar, how does that make you feel? Does it make you nervous or does it make you excited?
JDD: You know my motto is ABC – Always Be Cool. If you have the biggest transfer in the world (the Neymar deal), La Liga wanted to receive the money from PSG so I asked my colleague, the lawyer of PSG and Neymar, to ask him (Neymar) and call him to see if he has his private jet here in Spain – which he did. So we flew from Madrid to Barcelona and we deposited the money to Barcelona. However, the law stated we had to give the money to La Liga, not Barcelona, but La Liga refused. So you have to be there, cool and composed and try to do your best and finalise your task. This is the same if it’s a Neymar case, Aguero or Zidane or anyone else like a small case of a 4th or 5th division club – I do the same because I am passionate about my job. First comes the law, if you don’t know the law first you can’t be a good sports lawyer.
Right now, I am on holiday, still working and making marketing contracts with ex-Valencia and Barcelona player David Villa, but for me it doesn’t feel like work. I’m on this beautiful island (Formentura), I go to the beach, the pool, have my lunches and dinner with friends but when I do my work here, I don’t feel like I am stressed or pressured because it’s the work I love. You have to love, love and love! And of course, be patient. You don’t have to be in a hurry. You have to sell yourself. In my opinion, you have to write legal articles, or more specifically sporting legal articles. I have been writing a weekly article for Marca, a Spanish sports news outlet, for over 20 years and have been writing and producing lectures for students. Notwithstanding, you have to go to seminars and be among your peers, be known and try to sell yourself. And of course, languages. If you want to be an international sports lawyer, you need languages. Now we have Spanish as an official language of CAS, for me it is, at least, mandatory to have English and Spanish and then if you have French, Italian and German it is also beneficial.
TND: Like you say, the more you can network and meet people from different places in different industries, the better it will be for the business to help understand different countries, different markets and even different sports.
JDD: Exactly, of course football is the main sport but we do other sports as well. For instance, around 8-9 years ago we started with esports which has continued to grow ever since, we also are exploring working with the Metaverse and NFT companies. I try not to stay in the typical lawyer life of just litigation and contracts, instead I want to lecture, I want to write, I want to see the new future like the Metaverse, for example a new company which I am a lawyer and also a member just signed a new deal with La Liga and the Metaverse (La Liga land). You can’t just stay and wait and see because every day there is a new sports lawyer entering the market, young hungry cannibals that want to swallow you up. We dig in different markets and are currently working with teams in Egypt, Jordan, Tanzania, China etc. Don’t stay in your comfort zone, but at the end if you just do that you will get left behind.
TND: Are you aware of any upcoming developments or challenges that we should be aware of for any future articles in the sports law world?
JDD: The challenges are how to get money for clubs and sport through sponsorships. At the moment, the TV exposure is there in abundance, but one day TV is going to be exhausted and will no longer exist in the format we know it. We also have NFTs, esports, Formula E, Metaverse to think about alongside the usual legal litigation work such as betting, corruption, ethics, good governance which we hear on a daily basis, however you’d be surprised at the amount of sports that don’t have this yet. For example with betting, players that don’t know they are going against the regulations and are betting in a sport that is forbidden to bet on in the new country they have been transferred to. People also want to invest in sports that are clean. So, when the sport is not clean, they will go to another one! You have to know your clients and lecture them to make the right decisions.
Then when it comes to the Metaverse, I know it is just the beginning, but I read an article in The Times the other day and I am happy that I have been able to embrace it because as a lawyer you have to be able to understand innovation and be ahead of your competitors. Sports law is not just contracts and litigation, it is everything that has a minimum link to the sport – if not, other people from different law markets are going to take it. Sports law has to be a cannibal too, you have to try and eat other markets as well.
TND: That’s it. Because sports law is such a diverse sector, that’s what makes it so interesting and dynamic.
JDD: Never say no to any client coming and saying, for example, “I want to have an app for the badminton players to see if they are jumping too much or not”. Just say: “okay, I will let you know about this and I will try my best” but also maybe you have another client that wants to invest. At the end of the day, it is related to sport. It is everything.
TND: With the metaverse, NFTs and cryptocurrency entering the sporting industry, does the lack of regulation concern you?
JDD: Okay. Just think back 35 years ago – there was no regulations in sport. Or maybe they were, but they were not that good. Remember with Bosman and the regulations for transfers, they went to the court and the decision made history. I also remember a badminton case, we had to defend a Spanish club and they were sanctioned, and I went to the disciplinary court of the badminton federation, and I saw no reason for the sanction. Although I did not win the case, we reduced the sanction and changed the regulation. For us (sports lawyers), we knew from the beginning there was no regulation. For instance, when I had my first case in UEFA, there did not accept video as proof of evidence. After 3 years, I received a letter from the head of disciplinary in UEFA saying: “we have finally accepted in the last assembly of UEFA that the video is going to be a tool for disciplinary cases” and now everybody is using it, but in the beginning it was not accepted!
So when it comes to Metaverse, NFTs, blockchain, maybe we don’t have enough regulation but it was the same with esports a few years ago. I think regulation is coming, for sure, but many things in life were not regulated initially, but then we invent something and then it becomes regulated, so no I am not concerned at all. We are there to make the law.
TND: And do you think there would be any attempt for the revival of the European Super League?
JDD: The Super League is something that I have been involved in since the 1990s. I was the lawyer of some clubs that had the chance to sign with Media Partners, a (Silvio) Berlusconi company, and there are clubs now that joined the Super League last year that were against it at the time. But it is there. We know it is a matter of money and power. But if we give the money and the power to the clubs and UEFA is keeping some as well, it’s fine. Last June, UEFA decided to launch the new regulations for all the competitions, so if you want to make a new competition, you have to first ask UEFA, which is a nonsense because if you have the chance to do the Super League you can, but what you can’t do is be in a Super League and be in a national championship because those championships are going to the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. So, it is either one or the other.
But UEFA made a mistake. To rectify this, they drafted the new regulations of the competitions in June this year to properly sanction those clubs that broke away, if they were to try and repeat what they did in April 2021, because as we know UEFA sanctioned those clubs at the time, but nothing happened so they had to withdraw those sanctions because there was no regulation. But now they have launched this new regulations on new competitions, which is a nonsense because you can’t be there to accept something that can’t be accepted. The only thing that you can do is modify your regulations saying: “if you do that, you cant be with us” – meaning the national FAs and the national leagues, because if you want to be in the national league you have to accept that the champions will play in the Champions League (or qualification if 2nd, 3rd 4th etc.).
They’re trying now to control how to make another competition, but for me is a nonsense because another competition can be done, the only thing you have to control is how you are going to do your competition. If you are going to do your competition against us, but without us? Fine, you do yours. But if you want to do your competition with us, it makes no sense. Super League will always be there, because as we know it is a matter of money and power. The clubs want more money and power and UEFA is giving more money to clubs and I think in the end it was a mistake from the Super League and JP Morgan, which JP Morgan admitted. They did not anticipate how the football fans and football family would rebel against the Super League. When the Super League came, the fans took the ball and said no, and JP Morgan did not have that in mind because they did not make the research. Now, I think they will be quieter.
However, there is one critical issue. At the end of this year (2022) the General Advocate of the European Union will decide the six prejudicial questions raised by the judge in Spain. Those six prejudicial questions are, in my opinion, a bit stupid because it is clear you can’t, if you are UEFA or FIFA, avoid having another competition. The following question was not made and not raised to the European Court of Justice: “can I be, in the meantime, in the national competition and refusing to do my task (which is competing in the Champions League) while playing in the Super League?”. This was not asked because the prejudicial questions were made, I guess, in favour of the Super League. And the answer could be yes to the sixth question and the Super League will say we won. No, the main question, “can I do this while I do the other?”, was never asked. So, if you do the Super League you cannot be in the national competition. I think it will always be there, but as a trick from the big clubs (we want more money etc). UEFA is feeding a lot of money. When you see the figures of 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago, it is a massive augmentation of the money given to the clubs. But of course, if you are in a closed Super League, you get more money. I am a fan of Valencia, we were champions 18 years ago and we had the chance to win it, but if you are out of the league, what chance do you have? I am not a fan of that. Legally, it is legal and you can’t go against that but sportingly and emotionally I’m against it.
TND: What do you think are the qualities that a good sports lawyer must have?
JDD: As I said first, be passionate about what you do, work a lot, don’t take things for granted (e.g. this is something in the jurisprudence or this is something that I already read), no, you have to be adventurous, you have to be a digger and try to see something that nobody else has seen before, and that is possible in sports law because it’s a broad area of law and sometimes there are gaps. Never take anything for granted. After, you have to be lucky enough to have a good case, but the luck is there when you are not searching for luck, you’re just working hard. One of my big cases, the South American bosman case, we had the chance to change the regulations and I received a call telling me they were going to do it. So, the chance was there and we took it. The chance didn’t just come out of nothing. You have to be there and provoke the chance. But how do you provoke? As I said, being there, being in the picture, writing, being in seminars, and now with the new means that you have, Twitter, LinkedIn, podcasts etc, why not? Of course, you have to have knowledge and then people will know you and recognise what you are doing. Be present, be there, be in the picture.
TND: If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring sports lawyers what would it be?
JDD: Now, I am going to repeat myself again here. ABC. Always Be Cool. When you are in a hearing and you discover something new, you have to take that and think more and more on that and this is something you are probably not aware of in your classes or at university. It is something you must have in your mind. You have to be prepared to bite and take advantage of anything. So, one of the things I have been involved in, in the hearings in CAS for example, one of my opponents said ‘this is my position’ and they read the position and they don’t change the position that we have written 6 or 7 days ago, or 1 month ago or 1 year ago I don’t know, and then they are reading that. No! You don’t have to read the case, you have to know the case! But then, to be aware of what is happening during the hearing and then you might change everything. So, always be cool but be aware that you have to be prepared to change your position all of a sudden and not be strict on your position when it needs to be changed and that’s something I can advise young people, because normally it is the opposite ‘we need to do the job and only the job’. The job is not only to read or to deliver your paper, your lecture or your statement in a hearing. No, it’s to think, and to think sometimes you have to change. If you don’t change and you’re stubborn, of course you will not be a good lawyer either.
TND: Thank you very much for your time, I'm certain our readers will find this very insightful and inspriring!
JDD: No problem! Glad you found this very helpful.