Sports law advice in Belgium
Sports law advice in Belgium for the entire sports sector
Sports regulation is becoming increasingly complex. Timely legal advice is essential. Everest Sport offers tailored support – combining the depth of a specialised firm with the breadth of a full-service law firm. We work on both one-off assignments and long-term collaborations.
Athletes ↗
Both amateur athletes and professional athletes. We assist you with contract negotiations, disciplinary proceedings, doping cases and every other legal challenge in your sporting career.
Sports clubs ↗
From non-profits to professionally structured companies. Clubs are often founded by volunteers who are quickly confronted with complex legal challenges.
Sports federations ↗
Organisations bearing significant legal responsibility for drafting and enforcing their regulations and maintaining governance.
Sports agents ↗
Player agents, sports agents and football intermediaries sit between the athlete and the club. We draft your mandates, guide your licence for paid sports placement and defend your commission when a party does not pay.
Other sport stakeholders
Coaches, referees, team managers, sponsors, organisers and public authorities. Everyone professionally active in the world of sport is welcome to reach out to us.
Sports we are active in
Football
Cycling
Athletics
Basketball
Fitness & strength sports
Volleyball
Tennis
Judo
Hockey
Rugby
Equestrian sports
Golf
Gymnastics
Swimming
Padel
Combat sports
Handball
Motorsport
Triathlon
Esports
Badminton
Table tennis
Winter sports
Water sports
Your sport not listed?We are active in every sport. Put your question to us.What a first conversation gives you
You put your file to us with the documents you have: the contract, the letter from the club or from the federation, and the regulations that apply to you. We read those documents and tell you three things. Which deadline is running. Which body has jurisdiction. And which step makes sense, including when that step means you are better off not litigating. We agree the fee with you in advance, so you know what a file costs before it starts.
The deadline is usually the real problem
Sports regulations work with short deadlines. An appeal against a disciplinary decision often has to be lodged within a few days, and that period also runs during a break in the competition or a holiday. Anyone who is late loses the case without anyone looking at the merits. Keep the message that shows the date of receipt, and come to us as soon as you know a decision is on its way. We look at that deadline first, before we assess the substance of your file.
Your regulations and the law apply together
Besides Belgian and European law, the regulations you accepted when you joined apply as well. Those regulations name the competent body and set the procedure. In Belgium the Belgian Court of Arbitration for Sport hears sports disputes in arbitration. Internationally the appeal goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, which publishes its procedural rules on its website. Flemish sports organisations affiliated to it bring their disciplinary files on doping and on transgressive behaviour before the Flemish Sports Tribunal. Which route applies to you is set out in your own regulations.
Where we work
We run files from Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and Hasselt, in Dutch, French and English. A dispute that starts in Belgium regularly ends before an international body, and the other way around. One and the same lawyer therefore follows your file across that border, supported by the other departments of the firm for the tax, employment and corporate questions.
What we need from you
- The full contract with every annex, not only the page the discussion is about.
- The regulations as they stood at the time of the facts.
- The correspondence with the other side, with the date of sending and of receipt.
- A short timeline of what happened, in the order in which it happened.
- The names of the people and organisations involved, so that we can check for a conflict of interest.
How sports law advice in Belgium works in practice
Most people call us when a deadline is already running. This is what happens next, and what you can do before that call.
The first conversation
Tell us what happened, what you received and on which date it reached you. That last date matters most, because nearly every deadline in sport runs from notification and not from the day you decided to act. In that first conversation we tell you which body is competent, which period is running, and whether something has to be done this week. If the file is not one for us, we say so rather than open it.
What to bring
Put the documents together before you call: the contract and its annexes, the regulations of your club and of your federation, the decision or letter you received, and the correspondence that led up to it. Keep messages in their original form rather than as screenshots. A file that is complete on the first day costs less to run and stands up far better in front of any body.
Advice before a dispute exists
The cheapest work we do is the work done before anything goes wrong: reading a contract before it is signed, checking statutes against the law, and testing a selection policy or a disciplinary regulation for the gaps that cause trouble later. Clubs and federations in Flanders can also find general guidance and model documents through Sport Vlaanderen.
Three languages, four offices
We work from Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp and Hasselt, in Dutch, French and English. Sport in Belgium is organised by community, so the rules binding a club in Flanders are not always those binding a club in Wallonia or Brussels. An international file adds a third layer on top, with the regulations of the international federation and, where they provide for it, arbitration abroad.
How we agree the fee
We settle the basis for our fees in writing at the start of the file, and we tell you what a step is likely to involve before we take it. You decide whether that step is worth taking. Our general terms and conditions set out how fees and costs are calculated and how we handle a complaint.
What we do not do
We do not promise an outcome, and we do not take a file simply because it can be filed. Where a case is weak, where the deadline has passed, or where the cost is out of proportion to what can be recovered, we say that at the start. That answer is worth more to you than a procedure that was never going to succeed.