FIFA Executive Committee to NSFs on citizenship v residence — Participation on National Teams for Intnl Competitions

Paul and Jack’s discussion sure has been memorable, I never thought that post would lead to such interaction. Attending to the matter of the post, indeed, my understanding and interpretation is this, and FIFA appears for some time now not assuming FIBA’s more intense stance in re: participation on national teams:

- FIFA does oblige the clubs to release the players and this is the whole criticism from the G14 and the supporters of the Oulmers case, especially considering his case, of an injury sustained during national team competition, resulting in the player being unavailable for club play due to the incapacitating injury… It does appear, and the colleagues who are closer to this can advise us, that the dialogue b/t Platini, UEFA, the G14 and other clubs and players representatives (what does FIFPro do during this anyway, are they included truly?), may lead to more safety nets in re: insurance, some form of club representation in the process, essentially treating the Oulmers case before the courts do, unless they burnt the bridges they started building again…

- FIBA on the other hand had that pretty amazing notion that we read in the original post:
H3.6.3 Players’ availability to play for a national team
H.3.6.3.1 General principles (see also H1.12).
a) Any club which signs a contract with a player is obliged to release
that player when he is summoned by a national member federation
to play for its national team in any age category in a main official
competition of FIBA.
b) Any player registered with a club is obliged to reply in the
affirmative when summoned to play for his national team.

Again, any club player IS OBLIGED TO REPLY in the affirmative…

At the same time, basketball players too have been known to negotiate and declare their unavailability for national team play, though sometimes in the past there were direct consequences for national league club play, when it was still run by the same federation, before we moved to the new professional leagues’ model in some sports.

This too has a story behind it that may not be within the lines of this correspondence…
With the limited experience working through FIBA and our Greek basketball federation in the past, our two Greek cents here would be that after a change in the leadership of FIBA, which will not take place before 2010, considering the recent elections (mainly referring to FIBA-Europe here) this too will be revisited, if not before that time… To clarify, I do believe that the present leadership has offered a few good things, but is portraying an outdated reality in conducting “sport business” affairs… However, the “Eastward expansion” which led to getting the crucial voting majority (appeared landslide after Marculionis’ withdrawal under somewhat interesting conditions) and essentially led to a renewed term may not be beneficial in the immediate (till 2010) future in re: organizing the world of basketball under contemporary terms, conditions, and essentially Law mandates…

Having observed the recent developments b/t FIBA and ULEB (the European professional leagues’ association, featuring arguably the best teams in Europe, what the G14 would be for basketball) once again breaking ties and going their own way, one has to be sad that we still can’t reach common ground and find at last a way to bridge the socio-cultural model and all the practices carried over from the past that will be/are/have been found in violation of EU law with what contemporary reality calls for.

Hopefully we can find some common ground, something that FIBA and ULEB haven’t reached on two occasions, leading to the breakup of European basketball, and UEFA and the G14 hopefully will learn from and won’t have to wait till Oulmers or any irreparable damage to relations…

On the original post, this citizenship v residence issue does appear along the lines of the ‘classicists’ and proponents of preserving the socio-cultural model and pyramid structure with the concurrent self-regulation of NGOs/ISFs w/o EC or ECJ intervention in our case…
If this is the case and such regulatory evolution abides by what courts have commented falling within the “specific nature” of sport then there probably is no need to worry about any future legal proceedings, or would anyone forecast otherwise? Again, this is national teams’ international competition we are referring to, and not the private entities’ organization of club leagues, that have immediate labor law/services/establishment consequences…

Best wishes

Tassos
Sport&EU, The Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union can be found at http://www.sportandeu.com

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Hope the summer is treating you well.
Immigration Law lovers will find this interesting, and the US crew may think of this next time we hear a debate on immigration reform and permanent residence v citizenship pontifications…
Quick post for reflection on a breaking development from FIFA; sadly after some limited research no official doc/pdf/media release on the matter was available yet, however various sources report the communication from FIFA via the Executive Committee letter to National Federations on the matter (if anyone retrieves the official file from FIFA/UEFA in upcoming posts, please fwd):

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/SPORT/football/06/21/fifa.eligibility.reut/index.html

http://uk.reuters.com/article/footballNews/idUKB83087820070621?feedType=RSS

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=873817&contrassID=2&subContrassID=6

possibly an update soon to be found under:

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/documentlibrary/legalmatters.html

Essentially we are witnessing a shift of the traditional residency burden in re: national team competitions and players’ eligibility to a citizenship standard. Thinking of the past practices many ISFs selected in order to bolster national teams with resident aliens, this really changes significant administrative policies for many constituents. It appears e.g. that national bodies will have to actually pursue going the full route of securing citizenship for the players involved, which in certain cases might not be feasible. And as the articles observe, in the case residents of one country migrate to another to play for a different club, they will be ineligible for the national team of the former country, and they will in all likelihood (according to the several established criteria of the various governing bodies, certainly for FIFA and FIBA) be ineligible for the latter, due their past participation on a different national team. Hence, immigration lawyers of the various countries involved, enjoy preparing for the administrative process FIFA provides us with in the immediate future.

For an interesting case somewhat epitomizing the issues involved and truly showing national legislatures the way:
http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps70082/Aug%202006%20GLM%20no%203/2006_glm_08.pdf
(I attach the section related to KT Douglas and the Lithuanian Act of Parliament, I loved this one, bold italics added)
‘On July 17, 2006, the Parliament of Lithuania amended the Citizenship Law, allowing the President of Lithuania to grant Lithuanian citizenship by way of derogation in cases affecting the public interest or in order to promote Lithuania in the international arena. The amendment substantially expands the possibilities for granting Lithuanian citizenship by this means; under the previous law, it could be given only “to persons who made a significant contribution to strengthening the Lithuanian state and to boosting Lithuania’s power and its image in the international community.”
The amendment allowed the President to reconsider a previously declined request to grant Lithuanian citizenship to American basketball player Kathryn Douglas, the leader of the Vilnius basketball club Teo. Acquisition of Lithuanian citizenship will make her eligible to represent Lithuania at the World Women’s Basketball Championship in Brazil in August. Without Lithuanian citizenship, the basketball player cannot play for the Lithuanian national team. The amendment was initiated by a group of famous Lithuanian athletes, politicians, scientists, and actors, who urged the legislature to amend the law in behalf of Douglas. (President Reconsidered US Basketball Player’s Application for Lithuanian Citizenship, BNS [Baltic News Service], July 19, 2006.) (Peter Roudik)’
For the record Katie Douglas never played for Lithuania in the World Championships, instead she joined the US national team in exhibition games overseas in the Spring of 2007… (a twist being that, married to a Greek citizen, she would be able to pursue yet another avenue for national team participation).

Some thoughts on FIFA’s new regulation already posted on:
http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=11915525
hopefully more may be discussed via our colleagues under:
http://www.e-comlaw.com/sportslawblog/default.asp
some related stories re: nationality/citizenship…
http://www.uefa.com/footballeurope/news/kind=2/newsid=508417.html
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/ps%5f901%5fen%5f90.pdf
and a useful read, being the ESLJ Boyes 2005 article:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/eslj/issues/volume3/number1/boyes/#a75

In light of the upcoming implementation of the “home-grown rule” for club competitions [no mention of nationality therein, simply a reference to 'locally trained' players, see http://www.uefa.com/newsfiles/277167.pdf ; reasons are legally obvious -- distinguishing here b/t sport laborers on clubs and the national teams' participants, who select to answer the call of the federation... essentially w/o having another choice, (or do they? some now just negotiate with the federations and/or claim injuries in view of national teams' comps.) see the Oulmers case and discuss whether you feel the whole structure of international comps. featuring national teams may change, by federations not being able in the future to oblige clubs to release players for their national teams] and this new development re: national teams participation and eligibility of players, it appears that FIFA is showing the way to other ISFs… Somewhat fascinating to observe whether FIBA or others will follow suit… Opinions?

Needless to say that Jurisprudence may never decide such a matter referring to national teams’ competitions, considering the self-regulation of ISFs… or…? Could we hypothesize i.e. re: Constitutional and Labor Law, Equal Protection/Discrimination, athletes vs other laborers not enjoying the same privileges toward obtaining citizenship…? Other extensions you see? Is there any research in the works, especially considering the always fascinating distinction b/t club and national teams competitions…?
On the latter thoughts, the comments from our US colleagues in re: particular “documented disinclination samples” for participation on the US national teams (our overseas colleagues would be familiar with NBA players expressing their unwillingness to participate on “Dream Teams”…) may assist our overseas colleagues to capture the feasibility of such practices in the new world order of pro sport, perhaps declaring such insistence of NSFs and ISFs irrational, outdated, and how about… contrary to the respective national and international laws on ind. freedoms/labor/services provision…
(examples: FIBA~H3.6.3 Players’ availability to play for a national team
H.3.6.3.1 General principles (see also H1.12).
a) Any club which signs a contract with a player is obliged to release
that player when he is summoned by a national member federation
to play for its national team in any age category in a main official
competition of FIBA.
b) Any player registered with a club is obliged to reply in the
affirmative when summoned to play for his national team.
FIFA~http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/administration/ps%5f792%5fen-annex%5fii%5f74.pdf)

Enjoy the rest of your summer and your good work

Best wishes

Tassos