Hamburg/Cologne – The long-established North German club does not have to pay EUR 250,000 in commission in connection with the transfer of Davy Klaassen. The dispute before Bremen Regional Court centred around whether the claimant was entitled to pro rata commission for the 2020/21 season as it had acted as agent when the player transferred from his former club, FC Everton, to Werder in the 2018/19 season, even though the player changed clubs on the very last day of the summer transfer window in October 2020.
In the contract between the agency and the club, the latter had agreed to pay a fee on a progressive scale per season until the 2021/22 season. The payment was due every year on 31 August at 11:59 pm, but was subject to the condition that the player contract between Davy Klaassen and SV Werder Bremen was still in place at that time. Because the 2019/20 season did not finish until July due to a two-month Covid-induced break, the summer transfer window was put back accordingly. Instead of the usual 31 August cut-off date, in 2020 the transfer window thus closed on 5 October. Since Davy Klaassen moved to top Dutch club Ajax Amsterdam on that day, the court had to decide whether the date of 31 August stipulated in the contract still applied. SV Werder Bremen would then have had to pay commission for a player who had already left the club. The Regional Court followed the club’s line of argument and ruled that based on a necessary supplementary interpretation of the contract, the crucial date was not 31 August 2020, but 5 October, i.e. the last day of the (postponed) transfer window.
A CMS team consisting of Dr Robert Budde (Cologne, Partner), Sebastian Cording (Hamburg, Partner) and Philipp Rohdenburg (Cologne, Senior Associate) from the CMS Sports Group represented SV Werder Bremen in this legal dispute, successfully countering the action brought by the players’ agency before Bremen Regional Court in these first-level proceedings.
CMS Germany
Dr Robert Budde, Partner, Cologne
Dr Sebastian Cording, Partner, Hamburg
Philipp Rohdenburg, Senior Associate, Cologne, CMS Sports Group
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