The 14th Update | May'26
May 2026
Welcome back to the 14th Update, a Newsletter curated by 14 Sports Law, where the world of sports law unfolds with the rhythm of a well-struck penalty kick.
We’re pleased to bring you the May edition of the 14th Update, featuring a curated selection of significant developments from across the global sports landscape. This edition places particular emphasis on key case-law updates alongside important regulatory developments.
In this edition, we’re introducing Broadcast Writes. It’s a little corner on one of the biggest drivers in sports: Media & broadcast rights.
As always, we invite you to share your thoughts, feedback, and questions with us at [info@14sportslaw.com].
Best,
Luis Cassiano Neves
Founding Partner, 14 Sports Law
Luis Cassiano Neves shared his experience and insights with ISDE (Madrid/Barcelona) students during their recent visit to Cambridge.
Matilde Costa Dias delivered an in-person session on “Acting before the Court of Arbitration for Sport” at the O REI Sports Law Institute in Madrid.
The team welcomes Márcia Maia, joining us as Client Relations & Administrative Assistant and bringing the kind of frontline excellence every top-tier sports practice relies on.
André Duarte Costa and Aakash Batra contributed to the National Sports College, Winneba (Ghana) Certificate Course in Sports Law, speaking on the FIFA regulatory framework and CAS proceedings, respectively.
14 Knowledge Lab, the upskilling and thought-leadership platform of 14 Sports Law, has concluded its flagship FIFA Agent Exam Preparation Course with live lectures by the team comprising of Luis Cassiano Neves, Matilde Costa Dias, André Duarte Costa, Gabriel Eguinoa, Kosmas Mitsios, and Aakash Batra.
14 Knowledge Lab also hosted a Roundtable and Networking Reception in Mumbai, India, with Luis Cassiano Neves and Aakash Batra leading discussions on “League Culture and Governance Reforms – The Future of Indian Sport.”
After the Whistle: Results, Reviews, and What Comes Next for Agents
With the FIFA Agent Exam sessions now concluded, we wish all candidates the very best as they await the outcome. For anyone who faced technical glitches or platform issues during the exam, it is advisable to promptly write to regulatory@fifa.org with a clear description of the issue and any supporting screenshots or details. Please also note the upcoming FIFA timeline: 4 June 2026 is the scheduled date for the announcement of results, and 7 June 2026 is the deadline to request a review of results. Given the short review window, candidates should plan ahead and act swiftly once results are released.
Separately, candidates and practitioners should keep a close eye on the ongoing legal challenge concerning the FIFA Football Agent Regulations before the CJEU (Case C-209/23, originating from a referral by the Regional Court of Mainz). The proceedings have already seen key milestones, including FIFA’s suspension of certain FFAR provisions worldwide following a German injunction (30 December 2023) and the Advocate General’s Opinion of 15 May 2025 broadly supporting the FFAR’s validity- with developments reportedly expected again in mid-2026 on the contested provisions, particularly the service fee cap. We will continue tracking this closely and will share updates as soon as there is clarity from the Court.
AFCON Final Heads to CAS – Senegal Challenges CAF’s Forfeiture Ruling
The FSF (Senegal) has taken the AFCON 2025 final dispute to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), challenging CAF’s Appeal Board ruling (17 March 2026) that treated Senegal as having forfeited the match and recorded a 3-0 win for Morocco. The controversy turns on a brief but dramatic incident late in the match: Senegal’s team and staff left the field for approximately 14-17 minutes without the referee’s authorisation in protest at refereeing decisions; later when the players came back, play resumed, the penalty against Senegal was saved, and Senegal ultimately won the match on the field in extra time.
Legally, the case is a textbook collision between strict competition regulations and sporting finality. CAF’s approach rests on a literal application of AFCON Regulations Article 82, with Article 84 as the mechanical consequence: an unauthorised walk-off triggers forfeiture regardless of the referee later resuming and completing the match. Senegal’s counter-argument is that the match was validly completed under the referee’s authority, and that reversing a finished final from engages the field-of-play doctrine, which protects on-field decisions absent exceptional defects to be proved on a very high threshold. Additionally, CAF has announced that General Secretary Véron Mosengo-Omba has stepped down after five years, with Samson Adamu appointed interim General Secretary pending a formal recruitment process.
What follows will likely hinge less on emotion and more on interpretation: Is the walk-off an automatic disqualifier, or does the referee’s decision to resume, and the match’s natural conclusion, lock in the sporting result? Stay tuned with the 14th Update as we decode this super intriguing case as it develops at the CAS.
CAS Bulletin 2026/1 Released – Football Still Leads the Docket
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has published CAS Bulletin 2026/1, the first Bulletin of 2026, featuring a selection of CAS awards and Swiss Federal Tribunal decisions of relevance to sports law. This edition highlights 26 notable decisions, including 14 football-related cases, reaffirming football’s continued dominance in CAS jurisprudence.
The Bulletin spans significant awards issued between 2024 and 2026, including decisions from the Milano–Cortina Winter Olympics Ad Hoc Division, and touches on a broad mix of issues, from disputes involving FIFA/UEFA to doping matters. Notably, this edition does not include any standalone articles, focusing instead on awards and case summaries.
IOC Recasts Women’s Category Rules for the Next Olympic Cycle
On 26 March 2026, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a new Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport, approved by the IOC Executive Board and applicable from LA28 onwards (not retroactive). The policy introduces a uniform Olympic-wide eligibility rule: participation in the women’s category at IOC events will be limited to biological females, determined primarily through a one-time SRY gene screening (saliva/cheek swab/blood), with negative results generally valid for life unless there is reason to believe an error occurred.
The IOC frames the shift as science-led and athlete-centred, aimed at protecting fairness, safety and integrity, and notes limited, medically grounded exceptions (e.g., specific DSD conditions such as CAIS) where an athlete does not benefit from the performance-enhancing effects of testosterone.
To understand the scale of the reversal, consider where the IOC has been. In 2003, it first allowed transgender athletes to compete- but only after surgery, hormone therapy, and legal gender reassignment. By 2015, surgery was dropped; a testosterone threshold became the standard. Then in 2021, the IOC abandoned uniform rules altogether, handing eligibility decisions to individual sports federations and declaring there should be “no presumption of advantage” for transgender athletes. The 2026 policy dismantles it entirely, replacing federation-by-federation discretion with a single, binding, biology-based rule across all Olympic disciplines.
FIFA World Cup 2026 Arbitration Rules Released - CAS Ad Hoc Division Returns
On 24 April 2026, Court of Arbitration for Sport and FIFA published the Arbitration Rules for the FIFA World Cup 26 Final Competition, confirming that CAS will operate an Ad Hoc Division during the 2026 World Cup (from 11 June to 19 July 2026) across Canada, Mexico and the United States. The mechanism mirrors the Qatar 2022 model and is designed to ensure swift, independent resolution of tournament-related appeals, with decisions targeted within 48 hours.
The Ad Hoc Division will hear appeals against FIFA decisions connected to the tournament through an expedited procedure, with arbitrators appointed from the CAS football list. Crucially, access is limited: an appeal may only be filed after internal legal avenues have been exhausted, and only where the contested decision is appealable to CAS under Article 50 of the FIFA Statutes.
CazéTV warms up World Cup viewing with Portugal expansion
CazéTV’s entry into the Portuguese sports media market is a notable shift in sports media rights distribution. LiveModeTV announced in late 2025 a deal to stream 34 matches from the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Portugal for free on YouTube, including all Portugal games and a daily “match of the day.” Traditional pay-TV (Sport TV holding all 104 matches, many exclusively) will now coexist with a free, digital-first layer designed to expand reach and accessibility. This structure materially lowers access barriers, particularly for younger and casual audiences, while introducing direct competition for viewer attention within the same rights market. In these situations, the football fan tends to be the biggest winner.
From a business and legal perspective, LiveModeTV is not a promotional add-on but as a structurally distinct rights exploitation strategy—leveraging creator-led production, YouTube-native distribution, and ad-supported monetization. This model reframes live sports broadcasting as community-driven content rather than purely premium inventory, challenging entrenched exclusivity norms in European rights markets. The Portugal deal is an early signal of broader industry disruption in a fairly traditional market.
We’ll be following this one closely in upcoming editions as LiveMode builds momentum and hype around its webcast.
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