Swiss Federal Supreme Court Judgment of 16 June 2025, A. v. FC B
Motion to set aside CAS Award CAS 2023/A/9923 of 17 December 2024
This case forms part of a series of SFT judgments relating to the “famous” Clause 49 in Hungarian football contracts of employment (see also my note on the more recent – and important – case 4A_92/2025 here). This case concerned the termination, by a player (the Player) of his contract of employment with Hungarian Football Club (Club B) after a disagreement regarding his relegation to the second team and alleged contractual breaches. The Player filed a claim with the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC), which asserted jurisdiction under Art. 22 RSTP and awarded him compensation. The Club appealed to the CAS, arguing that Clause 49 of the contract conferred exclusive jurisdiction to the Hungarian Administrative and Labour Court for labour disputes. CAS Accepted the claim and overturned the FIFA decision.
Clause 49 read as follows: “49. The Parties agree that they shall make efforts to settle their possible dispute in amicable way by negotiations. lf these efforts fail – in cases determined by the rules of MLSZ and FIFA – the Parties may turn to the organizational units with MLSZ or FIFA scope of authority, in case of labour dispute to the Administrative and Labour Court having competence and scope of authority, and in all other disputes arising out of their legal relationship the Parties stipulate the exclusive jurisdiction of the Sports Standing Arbitration Court based on the Article 47 of the Sports Law. The number of arbitrators is three; the procedure is determined by the Procedural Rules of the Arbitration Court.”
In the motion to the SFT, the Player invoked an erroneous judgment on jurisdiction (Art. 190 para. 2 b PILA), arguing that the dispute was of international dimension and that FIFA had correctly asserted jurisdiction based on Art. 22 para. 1 (b) RSTP unless the parties opted clearly and expressly in favour of a national arbitration body, conditions that the Player considered as not fulfilled.
The SFT confirmed the CAS’ finding that its jurisdiction as an appellate body could not go beyond the first instance jurisdiction (FIFA DRC) (at 1.1). It further confirmed that FIFA jurisdiction enshrined in Art. 22 (1) RSTP is not absolute but depends on the choice of the parties – who could opt for the exclusive jurisdiction of the state courts. In this regard, the CAS had rightly interpreted Clause 49 of the contract, which foresees different competent instances such as MLSZ, FIFA, Administrative and Labour Court and a “Sport Standing Arbitration Court” depending on the scope of the dispute. More specifically, the jurisdiction of the Hungarian Administrative and Labour Court was foreseen for labour law disputes, whereas the Sport Standing Arbitration Court for all other disputes. Therefore, a literal interpretation would lead to the jurisdiction of Hungarian state courts for labour law disputes such as the present dispute. The CAS also considered the fact that the football player was an experienced player aware of the terms of the contract he had signed and that there was no structural imbalance between the parties.
This is an interesting SFT judgment which clarifies the widely discussed “alternative” jurisdiction of Art 22 (1) b RSTP, providing for both the FIFA DRC and for state courts. Accordingly, and other than suggested by the Player, the SFT did not consider that there was no consent of the parties to Clause 49. The judgment confirmed that (experienced) players remain bound by forum-selection clauses in standard contracts, absent clear evidence of imbalance or coercion. Moreover, the SFT stressed that the material element in the interpretation of the jurisdiction clause was the referral to state courts, irrespective of the unclear designation of the “Administrative and Labour Court”. This brings us back to the well-established federal case law whereby the waiver to state court jurisdiction should not be easily assumed, with the SFT following a restrictive interpretation of such waiver. This applies irrespective of who seizes the arbitral tribunal, hence the distinction between employee or employer cannot be considered to be decisive.
