By Diksha Singh
On 1 August 2025, the European Court of Justice delivered its ruling in Royal Football Club Seraing v FIFA (C-600/23), a decision that marks a constitutional turning point for sports arbitration within the European Union (EU). For professional athletes, this means disciplinary or transfer disputes can no longer be insulated from EU law oversight. Where the final decisions of sports tribunals clash with the EU’s basic guarantee of effective judicial protection, they must yield.
Far from a narrow ruling about football, Seraing reverberates across the wider landscape of private dispute resolution. Its reasoning could reshape arbitration in areas including employment and consumer arbitration, investment dispute mechanisms, and professional disciplinary proceedings where arbitral submission is structurally compelled rather than genuinely voluntary. The judgment thus signals a constitutional rebalancing between arbitral autonomy and the Union’s foundational guarantee of effective judicial protection.
Contextualizing the Constitutional Stakes
A Belgian second-division football club entered agreements with Maltese investment fund Doyen Sports, transferring economic rights in players’ future transfers in violation of FIFA’s prohibition on third-party ownership. The constitutional question that emerged, though, transcended these commercial arrangements. When FIFA imposed sanctions including transfer bans and financial penalties, these were upheld by both the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.
The Belgian Court of Cassation confronted a fundamental tension between the res judicata effect of arbitral awards, the principle that arbitral decisions are final and binding and the Union’s commitment to effective judicial protection under Article 47 of the Charter. In essence, the question was whether private arbitral finality could override the individual’s right to a judicial remedy where EU law rights are at stake.
The constitutional framework that emerged from Seraing challenges the orthodox understanding of arbitral finality within the EU legal space. The ECJ recognized that while arbitration remains “in principle possible,” its implementation within the European Union must satisfy compatibility requirements with both the Union’s judicial architecture and its public policy foundations. This doctrinal formulation reveals a pragmatic approach: the Court does not reject private dispute resolution, but it insists that arbitral autonomy must remain subordinate to fundamental rights protection.
Deconstructing the Doctrine of Compulsory Arbitration
Central to the Court’s reasoning is a crucial distinction between voluntary and imposed arbitration. The Court identified that sports arbitration, particularly under FIFA’s regulatory framework, operates through “unilaterally imposed” dispute resolution systems rather than genuine contractual consent. This characterization transforms the constitutional calculus. Where parties freely choose arbitration, the traditional presumptions of finality and limited judicial review may apply. Where arbitration is functionally mandatory, however, different constitutional safeguards must be engaged.
This phenomenon of “structural compulsion” is not merely theoretical. In Pechstein v. International Skating Union, the European Court of Human Rights recognized that professional athletes are effectively compelled to accept arbitration clauses as a precondition for participation in international competitions. Refusal would mean exclusion from competition altogether. Formal consent, in such circumstances, masks substantive coercion. The ECJ’s reasoning in Seraing resonates with this reality, acknowledging that when access to a profession depends upon acceptance of arbitral jurisdiction, the safeguards of effective judicial protection must necessarily apply.
This distinction reveals the Court’s nuanced understanding of power dynamics within the global sports economy. Professional athletes and clubs operate within hierarchical structures where access to competition depends upon acceptance of governing body rules, including mandatory arbitration clauses. The ECJ recognized that such structural compulsion cannot insulate arbitral awards from the fundamental protections that EU law guarantees to economic actors. The judgment thus represents a nuanced response to the realities of modern sports governance, where formal consent masks substantive coercion.
Importantly, the implications of this reasoning extend well beyond sports. Investment arbitration, employment disputes involving mandatory arbitration clauses, and consumer arbitration mechanisms all potentially fall within the scope of this reconceptualized framework.
Recalibrating Judicial Review Standards
Perhaps the most consequential aspect of Seraing lies in its redefinition of judicial review. The Court established that national courts must possess powers to conduct in-depth judicial review of CAS awards, examining their consistency with EU competition law, free movement provisions, and fundamental rights protections. This marks a decisive move away from the deferential stance traditionally accorded to arbitral finality.
In doing so, the court redefined the standard of judicial oversight. It held that review cannot be confined to the narrow boundaries of public policy traditionally applied in arbitral award enforcement. Instead, courts must ensure comprehensive scrutiny of an award’s substantive compliance with EU law, guaranteeing that arbitral efficiency never comes at the expense of effective judicial protection.
At the same time, the ECJ sought to strike a careful balance. It acknowledged that judicial review may be “legitimately limited in order to take account of the specific features of arbitration,” including efficiency and procedural autonomy. However, these limitations cannot compromise the substantive requirement that individuals obtain meaningful judicial protection of their EU law rights. The resulting framework preserves arbitration’s utility while embedding it firmly within the Union’s constitutional order.
Critically, the Court specified that this judicial review must encompass both procedural and substantive dimensions. National courts must possess authority not merely to identify violations of EU public policy but to “bring to an end the conduct amounting to that infringement” and order appropriate remedies including damages. This remedial framework transforms national courts from passive reviewers into active protectors of EU law rights, empowered to grant interim relief and make preliminary references to ensure proper interpretation of Union law.
Territorial Jurisdiction and Arbitral Seat
A further constitutional innovation in Seraing concerns territorial jurisdiction. T The Swiss seat of CAS arbitration outside EU territory did not insulate awards from EU judicial review where they affected economic activities within the Union. This effects-based approach mirrors established EU competition law doctrine, extending EU legal scrutiny to external conduct with internal consequences. While this reasoning aligns with established principles of EU competition and antitrust law, it departs from traditional international arbitration norms that anchor judicial review primarily in the arbitral seat. Under the New York Convention, enforcement and review are generally the prerogative of the seat’s courts, in this case, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, whose scrutiny is limited to procedural irregularities and violations of fundamental public policy (ordre public).
By contrast, the ECJ’s approach in Seraing prioritizes the substantive protection of EU rights over strict territoriality. This inevitably creates a degree of friction with the Swiss model of minimal intervention and the Convention’s emphasis on finality. Yet the Court’s logic is constitutional rather than jurisdictional: where an arbitral award, even one seated outside the Union, produces legal or economic effects within the EU, Member State courts must retain the capacity to ensure that such effects comply with Union law. In this sense, Seraing subtly reconfigures the relationship between the EU’s constitutional order and the international arbitration framework, asserting the primacy of effective judicial protection without openly displacing the New York Convention regime.
Implications for Sports Governance and Beyond
The immediate implications of Seraing for sports governance are profound. FIFA, UEFA, and other international federations must fundamentally reconsider their disciplinary and regulatory frameworks to accommodate enhanced judicial review. The traditional model of arbitral finality long considered essential for uniform sports governance now operates within constitutional constraints that prioritize individual rights protection over administrative efficiency.
Beyond sport, Seraing offers a general constitutional template. Any arbitral system relying on structural compulsion is impacted: Arbitration is no longer a constitutional blind spot.
Constitutional Architecture and Judicial Dialogue
Seraing represents a landmark in constitutional dialogue between different legal orders. Rather than rejecting sports arbitration outright, the ECJ established a framework for constructive accommodation that preserves arbitral utility while ensuring constitutional compliance. This approach reflects careful understanding of legal pluralism recognizing that multiple normative systems can coexist provided they respect fundamental constitutional boundaries.
Seraing establishes that private arbitral systems cannot claim exemption from constitutional scrutiny merely through formal privatization. Where such systems exercise public-like functions regulating access to economic opportunities, imposing sanctions, determining market participants’ rights they become subject to public law constraints including fundamental rights protections.
Royal Football Club Seraing v FIFA, thus, represents far more than a sports law judgment. It articulates a constitutional doctrine that subordinates private arbitral finality to fundamental rights protection. For athletes, it promises meaningful access to justice. For arbitral systems, it marks the end of constitutional insulation. And for the EU legal order, it reaffirms that effective judicial protection remains the cornerstone of its constitutional identity.
