Legal assistance
Your career is short and every contract counts
A lawyer for athletes starts with one question: under which status do you work? An athlete in Belgium works under one of two. If you earn more than the annually set minimum, you are a paid athlete and you fall under the law of 24 February 1978. That law sets the duration of your contract, limits the possibilities for termination and regulates what happens in a transfer. If you stay below that amount, ordinary employment law applies, or the status of volunteer. Which status applies to you determines what you can claim and what your club can demand from you.
Everest Sports Law assists athletes from the first negotiation to the last procedure. We read your contract before you sign it, conduct proceedings when your club fails to pay, defend you before a disciplinary body or an anti-doping panel, and support your transfer. We work from Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and Hasselt, on Belgian files and on cases that end up before FIFA or the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne.
What you can come to us for
These are the matters that recur most often among athletes.
Your contract and your status
We assess whether you are a paid athlete and what that means for your pay, your notice period and your compensation on termination. The law of 78 regulates that dismissal scheme, and the amounts it sets out are adjusted every year. We read your contract before you sign it and negotiate the clauses that could cost you dearly later on.
Transfers and training compensation
When moving to another club, the regulations of your federation and those of the international governing body apply together. We support the transfer itself, examine whether a move without compensation is possible, and calculate the training compensation to which your youth clubs are entitled.
Your club fails to pay
A club that withholds wages or bonuses is in a legally weak position. Outstanding payments give you, under certain conditions, the right to terminate the contract without paying compensation. We draft the formal notice, monitor the deadlines and conduct the proceedings before the competent body.
Non-selection and the B-squad
A club cannot simply remove you from the squad. Anyone moved to the B-squad retains the right to training, to pay and to a fair chance. In selection disputes and participation in competitions we conduct the proceedings, including in summary proceedings when a match is approaching.
Disciplinary proceedings
A disciplinary sanction affects your career and your reputation. Disciplinary law in sport follows its own rules, with short deadlines and its own burden of proof. We prepare your defence, attend the hearing and lodge an appeal. See also our page on disciplinary law.
Doping
A positive test is not an end point. The WADA Code provides for defences, mitigating circumstances and appeal. The whereabouts rules also lead to sanctions when you are missed three times. We support you from the first notice to the decision. See our page on doping.
Image rights and sponsorship
Your name and your image have commercial value. Image rights determine who may use your image and under what conditions. We draft and review your sponsorship agreements, and act when a brand uses your image without consent.
Injury and medical care
An injury raises two questions: who bears the costs and who bears the liability. We examine reimbursement of care received abroad and the allocation of liability in a sporting accident. See also our page on liability law.
When to call a lawyer for athletes
A lawyer for athletes is most useful before a decision is final. Once a contract is signed or a disciplinary deadline has passed, the room to act is smaller.
Before you sign
Bring us the draft, not the signed copy. The term, the notice period and the compensation on early termination are set by the Act of 24 February 1978 for a paid athlete, and what the parties may still agree between themselves is narrower than most contracts suggest.
When a deadline runs
A disciplinary decision, a doping notification and a licence refusal each carry their own deadline, and several of them are counted in days. Tell us the date on the letter and the day you received it, and we will tell you what is still open.
When your club stops paying
Keep the payslips, the messages and the dates. A claim built on documents from the time it happened stands up. One reconstructed afterwards from memory does not.
Sports we handle this domain in
Athletics ↗
Everest Sports Law is your athletics lawyer in Belgium for selection, doping
Football ↗
Everest Sports Law is your football lawyer in Belgium for clubs
Basketball ↗
A basketball lawyer in Belgium for players, clubs, agents and federations: contracts
Tennis ↗
A tennis lawyer in Belgium for players, coaches and organisers: contracts, prize
Judo ↗
A judo lawyer in Belgium for judoka, clubs and federations: selection, disciplinary
Gymnastics ↗
A gymnastics lawyer in Belgium for gymnasts, coaches, clubs and federations: disciplinary