[Author: Dr. Mehrdad Mohammadi, Founder, Oriental Legal Solutions; Arbitrator, Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS/TAS)]

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A recurrent tactical reality in international sports law involves the financial stabilization maneuvers executed by some football clubs facing acute economic distress. When cash flow crises emerge, clubs frequently attempt to mitigate immediate regulatory exposure by convincing or coercing foreign players into executing secondary agreements, such as settlement frameworks, debt deferral protocols, or structured payment plans. Implicit within many of these localized financial disputes is a deliberate jurisdictional strategy deployed by clubs to sever the link to FIFA’s centralized judicial bodies. This strategy usually manifests in one of two ways: either the club inserts a forum selection clause routing all subsequent disputes exclusively to local civil courts or to the club’s domestic National Dispute Resolution Chamber (NDRC); or, if a subsequent payment plan explicitly recognizes FIFA’s competence, the club later attempts to systematically bypass that plan by weaponizing exclusive domestic arbitration clauses embedded in the earlier contractual framework.

The strategic objective of these maneuvers is clear. By trapping a player within a domestic judicial pipeline, the club seeks to isolate the athlete from rapid, international enforcement mechanisms and force them into often protracted, protectionist local litigation. However, contemporary jurisprudence from the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has systematically dismantled this tactic. As reinforced in Anorthosis Famagusta FC v. Hélder José Castro Ferreira & FIFA (CAS 2025/A/11553), neither prior domestic arbitration agreements nor subsequent theories of contractual novation can retroactively strip an employment relationship of its fundamental “international dimension.” This analysis evaluates the boundaries of FIFA’s international jurisdiction, the legal fiction of using separate contractual layers to defeat regulatory oversight, and the strict conditions required to bypass global football adjudication.

Deconstructing the “International Dimension” of Article 22 RSTP

The gateway to global sports justice for professional footballers is governed by Article 22 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP). The provision explicitly grants the FIFA Football Tribunal, and specifically the DRC, the institutional competence to adjudicate employment-related disputes between a club and a player that possess an “international dimension” (Colucci & Majani, 2008).

The determination of this international dimension is an objective, status-driven inquiry rather than a subjective, contractually modifiable one. Under long-standing Lex Sportiva principles, an international dimension is irrevocably established the moment an employment relationship involves a professional player and a club belonging to different national football associations (Colucci & Majani, 2008). By asserting exclusive, mandatory competence over international employment disputes, FIFA guarantees a uniform, predictable, and highly specialized legal framework (Lex Sportiva) that operates independently of domestic labor idiosyncrasies (Sousa, 2020). The international dimension is a protective regulatory shield that cannot be easily surrendered, signed away, or neutralized through contradictory tiers of localized contract drafting.

The Legal Fiction of Separate Contractual Layers and Novation Claims

When a club defaults on a structured payment plan or settlement agreement and the player files a claim before the FIFA DRC, the club’s primary defense almost invariably relies on manipulating the relationship between different contractual layers. Clubs frequently argue a theory of contractual novation, asserting that the signing of a secondary settlement agreement or payment plan completely extinguishes the original employment framework. Under this line of reasoning, clubs raise two alternative jurisdictional objections.

Both the FIFA DRC and CAS have continuously rejected these arguments as a legal fiction. The jurisprudence established by global sports tribunals firmly states that settlement agreements, debt acknowledgments, and deferred payment plans do not exist in an isolated vacuum. Instead, they remain legally parasitic to, and unseverable from, the primary employment relationship. Consequently, a club cannot alter the nature of its underlying regulatory obligations simply by re-packaging overdue wages into secondary documents. Because the financial substratum of the dispute is rooted in a professional player’s labor, the international status of the contracting parties dictates the applicable jurisdiction, overriding both prior and subsequent contradictory domestic forum selection clauses.

The Precedent of Anorthosis Famagusta FC v. Hélder Ferreira

The operational mechanics of this jurisdictional clash are clearly illustrated by the landmark dispute Anorthosis Famagusta FC v. Hélder José Castro Ferreira & FIFA (CAS 2025/A/11553). In that case, the Portuguese professional player Hélder Ferreira entered into an employment framework with the Cypriot club Anorthosis Famagusta on 28 June 2022, which incorporated the Standard Employment Contract of the Cyprus Football Association (CFA). Clause 13 of that standard framework granted exclusive jurisdiction over employment disputes to the National Dispute Resolution Chamber of the CFA. Furthermore, on 30 June 2022, the parties signed a Supplementary Agreement containing an explicit forum selection clause routing all disputes exclusively before the competent authorities of the Cyprus FA.

When the club subsequently experienced severe financial difficulties during the 2022/23 season and failed to pay the player’s salaries, the parties executed a secondary “Payment Plan Agreement” on 2 July 2023 to restructure the outstanding debts. Crucially, Clause 5 of this secondary Payment Plan Agreement explicitly stated that disputes would be subject to the jurisdiction of the FIFA DRC as the competent first-instance body for matters of an international dimension.

Following further defaults by the club, the player unilaterally terminated his contract with just cause and filed a claim directly before the FIFA Football Tribunal. Anorthosis Famagusta vigorously contested FIFA’s jurisdiction, attempting to weaponize the earlier contractual framework. Following further defaults by the club, the player unilaterally terminated his contract with just cause and filed a claim directly before the FIFA Football Tribunal. In Final Award 11553, the CAS Sole Arbitrator ultimately dismissed the club’s appeals, ruling that neither prior domestic forum selection clauses nor subsequent, backdated settlement maneuvers could be weaponized to defeat FIFA’s mandatory jurisdiction or dissolve the vertical sporting sanctions legally imposed under Article 17(4) of the RSTP.

The Parity Doctrine: Strict Exceptions to FIFA Jurisdiction

While FIFA vigorously defends its international jurisdiction, Article 22(1)(b) of the RSTP does provide a singular, narrow exception under which a domestic tribunal can legitimately bypass the FIFA DRC. For a domestic arbitration body or National Dispute Resolution Chamber (NDRC) to successfully claim jurisdiction over an international club-player dispute, the local framework must strictly comply with two foundational prerequisites:

1. The Parity Principle: The local tribunal must guarantee absolute structural parity between the representatives of players and the representatives of clubs (Colucci & Majani, 2008). This requires an independent arbitral panel constituted in a manner where players and clubs have equal influence over the selection of arbitrators, eliminating any institutional bias toward the domestic club (Colucci & Majani, 2008).
2. Compliance with Minimum Procedural Standards: The national tribunal must fully align with the minimum procedural criteria set forth in FIFA Circular 1010, which guarantees fundamental due process rights, independent choice of arbitrators, and a fair and impartial hearing (Colucci & Majani, 2008).

If the domestic tribunal designated in an underlying contract or settlement framework does not perfectly satisfy these objective, structural criteria, any forum selection clause favoring that body is void ab initio at the international level. In the vast majority of cases where clubs deploy localized frameworks, the designated domestic bodies fail the strict parity test. Consequently, when tested against international standards, these local forum clauses fail, and the FIFA DRC routinely reasserts its jurisdiction to protect the athlete.

Conclusion

When negotiating debt deferrals, settlement frameworks, or structured payment plans, players and their representatives must remain legally vigilant against any jurisdictional manipulation across different contractual layers. Clubs cannot evade global regulatory oversight by routing foreign player debt into domestic networks, nor can they use earlier domestic contract clauses to neutralize subsequent international settlement pathways.

To eliminate unnecessary jurisdictional litigation and establish maximum legal clarity, any settlement or debt-restructuring framework should explicitly incorporate a standard jurisdictional safety clause that explicitly overrides all prior or contemporaneous domestic agreements.

To mitigate jurisdictional ambiguity and secure maximum legal clarity, contemporary practice relies on integrating explicit jurisdictional safety clauses into debt-restructuring frameworks. These provisions must expressly reaffirm the international dimension of the dispute and designate the FIFA Football Tribunal as the exclusive jurisdiction that supersedes all prior or contemporaneous domestic agreements, with the final right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Because FIFA and CAS consistently look past the formal, layered structure of contracts to examine the underlying labor origins of the dispute, a club that defaults on its financial obligations will ultimately face severe sporting sanctions—including mandatory transfer bans under the Article 17(4) RSTP framework—irrespective of any tactical domestic jurisdictional defenses they attempt to mount. True risk management for clubs requires realistic financial restructuring and compliance rather than tactical procedural maneuvers designed to block global sports justice.

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[For queries or feedback, the Author can be reached out at mehrdad.legal@gmail.com]

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PREFERRED CITATION: Dr. Mehrdad Mohammadi, Blocking FIFA and CAS? The Limits of Domestic Contractual Frameworks and Settlement Maneuvers, Sports Law Review India, published on 17 June 2026.