Showing posts with label UEFA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UEFA. Show all posts

Monday, August 28, 2023

Can Arsenal supporter be impartial in football inquiry?

A curious story of lawyering ethics and football allegiance broke in mid-May, just after I went off contract with UMass Law and left the States for a chunk of the summer.

Manchester City Football Club (City, or MCFC), my team, won a historic "treble" over the summer, topping the Premier League, FA Cup, and UEFA Champions League.

Thomas Jefferson, me, and a City kit
at Hofstra University, 2016

Morgan Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

While City was on its spring tear, a modest shadow was cast by allegations of violations of "fair play" financial regulations in the Premier League for transactions dating to 2009 to 2018. From as much as is publicly known, the allegations focus on financial transparency requirements. Any ultimate finding of violation can have consequences going forward, ranging from fines to relegation from top-tier play.

City denies any misfeasance. In 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reversed a UEFA suspension of City for alleged violation of the financial regulations related to transactions from 2012 to 2016. The CAS decision was based principally on the exclusion of dated evidence, so the matter was not resolved on the merits. City then also denied any wrongdoing.

The present allegations, which themselves are reported to arise from a four-year investigation, have been referred to an independent commission. Its behind-closed-doors work will take a while. And City can be expected to litigate any adverse result.

The piece of the story that caused me to scratch my chin in May was the report that City had filed objection to the appointment of an Arsenal FC supporter, Murray Rosen KC, as chair of the independent commission.

Under rules of professional conduct in American law practice, being a fan of a sport team would not preclude a lawyer from representing a competitor. American Bar Association (ABA) Model Rule 1.7 focuses on conflicts in legal representation, not matters of social affiliation. Of course, the question comes down to the lawyer's ability to do the job "competent[ly]" and "diligent[ly]," so it's always possible for a lawyer to be compromised by sporting fervor. The best course is disclosure and client consent.

For a judge, ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 2.11 similarly, probably, would not demand a sport-fan judge's recusal from a matter involving a competitor. The requisite "personal bias or prejudice" is usually indicated by concrete evidence such as financial interest, familial affiliation, or former representation, not social preference.

More than lawyer ethics, the judicial canons give weight to public perception, testing expressly for objective perception of impartiality. But being a sport fan, absent economic investment, doesn't move that needle.

For example, in a fraud lawsuit settled confidentially five years ago, plaintiffs accused the New York Giants and players, including quarterback Eli Manning, of American football, of passing off memorabilia falsely as game worn. The plaintiffs asked New Jersey Superior Court Judge James J. DeLuca to recuse, because he was a Giants fan and, with his son, owned professional seat licenses—that's something, economically—to attend Giants games. DeLuca declined to recuse and pledged on the record his ability to remain impartial. All good, legal commentators opined. (E.g., NJ.com.)

JAMS guidelines for arbitrators are at least as permissive. Like the judicial canons, the guidelines look to both actual conflict and objective appearance of conflict. JAMS guidelines expressly condone "social or professional relationships with lawyers and members of other professions" as long as they do not "impair impartiality."

I don't know what ethics constraints pertain to Rosen, but I'm doubtful they are any more demanding. I also don't know, though, how deeply Rosen bleeds Arsenal red and white. City's filing is secret, so it's possible there's evidence of conflict that the public can't see.

Nothing in Rosen's public record raises a red flag. Based in London, he's a CAS-certified arbitrator and mediator. Any European professional, especially a Brit, and especially someone working in sport law, can be expected to favor a club or two in association football. Rosen was called to the bar in 1976. He's practiced media, sport, and art law and has served in a wide range of offices, even once chairman of the board of appeal of English Table Tennis.

A biography of Rosen at 4 Square Chambers, pre-dating the City matter, reported:

He is a strong believer in fairness and in the power and benefits of sport and has a keen appreciation of its social, political and financial aspects. He has participated in sport all his life, is a member of the MCC [I presume, Marylebone Cricket Club] and Arsenal FC, and still regularly plays real tennis and ping pong.

A 2019 biography at Herbert Smith Freehills mentioned in parentheses that Rosen "is an Arsenal season ticket holder." Arsenal of course was a contender for trophies City won in the end in its treble. But, at least upon what is publicly known, Arsenal has no direct interest in the financial regulatory matters, any more than another competing club.

The objection to Rosen might be part of a kitchen-sink litigation strategy, or, more likely, a public relations strategy. It's frustrating not being able to know the substance of the objection (or nearly anything about sport governance matters that wind up before CAS). On the public record, at least, the objection on ethics grounds doesn't seem to hold water.

In any event, the allegations against City do nothing to dampen my celebration of the treble! I wore my Erling Haaland kit to law school orientation just last week.

Saturday, October 2, 2021

Sheriff FC tells two tales, because that's football, life

Selfie, today (RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The Sheriff Football Club from Tiraspol in Transnistria, Moldova, defeated western European powerhouse Real Madrid, at home at the Bernabeu, in Champions League football last week.

Coincidentally, I've lately been sporting my "Sheriff" ball cap.  I wrote about Transnistria after my visit there, and to Sheriff's 12,000-seat stadium in Tiraspol, two years ago: "Breakaway state of Transnistria might model new Russian sphere of influence" (Dec. 16, 2019).

It's interesting to see how media outlets describe Sheriff's geographic home.  Most I've seen say "Moldova," which, I guess, is what you find if you look at a political map.  Wikipedia describes Tiraspol as "the capital of Transnistria, a breakaway state in Moldova."  Only in an Al Jazeera main headline did I see exclusive mention of Transnistria.  The subhede then started, "Football club from a pro-Russian separatist enclave in Moldova."

After I crossed into Transnistria and showed my papers to the heavily armed border guards to get my 24-hour visa in a flurry of stamps, I didn't feel like I was still in Moldova.

Most media outlets have not picked up the political thread on the upset story.  In one exception, Sheriff's road to Champions League glory is well contextualized by Gab Marcotti for ESPN FC.  He observed that none of the Sheriff players are Moldovan or Transnistrian—but before one "get[s] high and mighty about national identity, please consider that at the final whistle, there were exactly zero Spaniards on the pitch."

Is the Sheriff-over-Real-Madrid story "a 'fairy tale' or a sad reflection"? Marcotti wondered.  On the one hand, there is the peculiar joy of football as sometimes, or seeming, social leveler:

Let it be a reminder that ordinary players, on an ordinary Tuesday night, can walk into the temple of football and knock it down, like Samson back in the day. That's part of the appeal of this sport. It's low-scoring, it's mano-a-mano, and the gap between superstars and extras may be huge over time, but on any given day, it can be tiny and anything can happen.  

Marcotti drew on a Twitter thread from near-Tiraspol-born, ethnically Russian, now Baltimore, Md.-based sportswriter Slava Malamud to illustrate the other hand:

[Sheriff] have been Moldovan champions in 19 of the past 21 years, they have the country's only modern stadium and they're bankrolled by the Sheriff corporation, a conglomerate that includes Transnistria's only supermarket chain, gas station chain, telephone network, TV channels, publishing house and distillery. The owners have close ties to the local government, which, in turn, is funded and protected by Russia. This isn't just a company team; it's a company town in the company enclave of Transnistria, and you can't shake the feeling that this is what it takes for "fairy tales" like this to take place in the modern game.

Football is metaphor.  What happens on the pitch, especially when recounted by capable journalists, is contradiction, because contradiction is football, and football is life.  Sheriff is fairy tale and sad reflection.  In the same way that pride and frustration are fast friends.

Undefeated in the group stage, Sheriff now leads UEFA Champions League Group D with wins over Real Madrid and Ukraine's Shakhtar Donetsk.  Sheriff will face Inter Milan, in Milan, on October 19, again putting the fairy tale to the test.

(Below, BT Sport tweet from Sheriff's August win over Dinamo Zagreb to reach the Champions League (retweeted by Malamud)).