Sports law

Leshchinski Smolski Law Office specializes in providing legal services in the field of professional sports.

We have extensive experience in legal support of professional athletes, coaches, football agents and sports organizations and clubs.

We are ready to help in the following areas of sports law

Appeal against sports federations decisions	Representation of athletes interests in FIFA, CAS, sports federations, Arbitration courts	Debt collection (salary, bonuses) to football players, coaches, agents
Transfer disputes	Appeal of non-admission to competitions	Disputes in the field of disciplinary responsibility
Legal assistance to football clubs and sports schools (academies) in obtaining payments under the solidarity contribution and training compensation	Sports sponsorship and protection of commercial rights of competition organizers	Development and analysis of contracts in the field of sports

Our winning cases

We represented the interests of the Belarusian football club of the major league in FIFA in a dispute with the club AS BLACK STARS (Mali). As a result of the meeting, the FIFA Players’ Status Chamber ruled in favor of the Belarusian FC to recover from AS BLACK STARS (Mali) the amount for Momo Yansane’s transfer from AS BLACK STARS to FC Sheriff Tiraspol (Moldova) (sell-on fee).

We represented the interests of FC Isloch in a dispute with FC Krumkachi about collecting training compensation for the training of his former football player, the player of the national football team of Belarus, Ruslan Lisakovich. The dispute was considered by the Committee on the Status and Transfers of Players at the Belarusian Football Federation (ABFF). We managed to prove that the supplementary agreement signed between FC Krumkachi and the footballer does not meet the requirements for the proposal to conclude a new contract entitling the previous club to receive training compensation. Based on the results of three meetings, the Committee concluded that FC Krumkachi should be denied their claim.

We represented the interests of football agent Dmitry Khlebosolov in the Sports Arbitration Court of Belarus. The dispute concerned unpaid agency fees from a football player of the major league of the championship of Belarus. Based on the results of several court sessions, the Sports Arbitration Court concluded that the agent has the right to claim remuneration from a football player.

We represented the interests of Valery Tsyganenko, the coach of the major league team, in the ABFF appeal committee on a complaint against the decision of the ABFF Control and Disciplinary and Ethics Committee. Our lawyers managed to shorten the term of disciplinary sanction for Valery Tsyganenko in the form of disqualification for an altercation with an assistant referee during an official match.

We collected bonuses for the matches played with FC Shakhtar (Soligorsk) in favor of the football player. As part of the contract, bonuses were subject to monthly payment to the player during the 2021 season if the player played 50% or more of official matches for at least 45 minutes in a month.

We defended the interests of the football club in the Economic Court in the case of invalidation of the sponsorship agreement. The sponsor decided to forcibly return the money transferred to the football club, for which he filed a lawsuit against the club to declare the previously concluded contract invalid. However, we were able to prove that there are no grounds for invalidating the contract.

We provided legal support to football players Dmitry Makar and Alexander Papush, who were disqualified for participating in match-fixing, to achieve the application of a delay in the execution of disciplinary punishment for the remaining disqualification. As a result, the ABFF Control, Disciplinary and Ethical Committee allowed the players to take part in competitions without restrictions for a year before the end of the disqualification period.

We represented the interests of the football club in a court case on the recovery of lost profits from a football player involved in match-fixing. We managed to prove that the direct reason for the refusal of the sponsorship agreement of the title sponsor was the participation of a football player in match-fixing. As a result, part of the money received by the club from the sponsor was recovered from the football player.