Three months from today, on 11 June 2026, the opening match of the men's FIFA World Cup 2026 will take place in Canada, Mexico and the USA. A year later, on 24 June 2027, the opening match of the FIFA Women's World Cup 2027 will be held in Brazil – reason enough to kick off our "Football & Law" blog series on the legal rules behind the major tournaments. While the tournament is happening, numerous legal framework conditions have to be observed behind the scenes and sometimes certain decisions made off the pitch can also cause emotions to run high where the law is concerned.
World Cup 2026 and World Cup 2027 in times of political tensions
Experts from CMS will cover a wide range of legal topics in our blog series. In light of the current debate about hosts and individual venues as well as the geopolitical situation, one of our first articles will take a look at sport in times of political conflict. As major international sporting events have always been at the centre of political disputes, the article also examines their historical development and how the legal aspects are handled.
"Football & Law" gives a comprehensive overview from employment law to advertising law
The blog series deals with intriguing issues of trade mark and advertising law relating to the World Cup, such as virtual marketing, sponsorships and the use of logos and the coat of arms of Germany. The secondary ticket market is also the subject of an upcoming article. Another article analyses the jurisdiction of sports law disputes. Another focus will be on topics of em-ployment law such as fixed-term contracts in professional sport and the classification of refer-ees as employees. Like during every World Cup or European Championship, there is also a question for employees and employers as to what any overlaps between broadcasts and work-ing hours mean for working football fans. There will also be an article addressing this.
AI & football: Technological innovations in professional sport
We will also look at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in football. The focus here is on ref-ereeing decisions, match analysis, tournament organisation, fan experience and infrastructure. The FIFA World Cup 2026 will bring interesting innovations in all of these areas, which we will highlight for you.
Red card for sports betting fraud and match-fixing
We will also address the huge field of sports betting fraud and match-fixing in our series. In the article "Fair play on the pitch, foul play behind the scenes? Sports betting fraud in the World Cup year", we present numerous cases from practice and show how sports betting fraud can manifest itself in different ways in the context of major sporting events. At the same time, the article explains how such manipulations are organised and what challenges in-vestigating authorities and associations face in uncovering them.
Compliance in professional sport
Another portion of this blog series is devoted to compliance law issues. The articles shed light on the extent to which compliance should also be established in sport as a fixed factor in sus-tainable economic success and fair play off the pitch. In particular, the focus is on articles about money laundering requirements for professional football clubs and player agents, measures to prevent corruption (for example in connection with kickbacks from consultants to coaches and club employees) and key building blocks of effective ESG compliance with re-gard to sportswashing, greenwashing, pinkwashing and bluewashing.
Over the coming months, we will be taking a closer look at the legal side of football with you. Stay tuned when the ball gets rolling – legally speaking!
