A contract "at the center of a legal dispute" between Sporting Clube de Portugal and investment company Doyen Sports Investments "reveals the influence that some funds exercise" in the sport's $4B global player trading market, according to Tariq Panja of BLOOMBERG. The Court of Arbitration for Sport will rule as early as next month in a dispute between Sporting and Doyen over the $22M sale of defender Marcos Rojo to ManU. Sporting withheld proceeds of the trade after saying that Malta-based Doyen "forfeited a claim" to 75% of the fee by inducing the transfer against the club's interest. The verdict "may influence litigation" over FIFA's decision to "stop investors from buying stakes in the future transfer rights of players." London-based sports lawyer Daniel Geey, who is not connected with the case, said that if the decision details the contract, "it might shed some light on what has generally been an opaque process." Sporting signed Rojo from Spartak Moscow in '12 for €4M on a five-year contract. Doyen contributed €3M of the transfer fee in return for 75% of Rojo's future transfer value, or economic rights. The contract says the fund was to get the higher of a €4.2M "interest fee" or its percentage from the sale should the player, who is now 25, be transferred. The club and Doyen agreed that €8M "would be the minimum reasonable transfer offer for Rojo." The team was "obliged to accept an offer for that amount" or pay Doyen 75% of the transfer fee it rejected. Such clauses are commonplace in third-party contracts, according to Geey. He said the agreements often "skirt" the boundaries of what was permissible under FIFA's regulations before the ban. Geey said that "a lot of people would find it difficult reconciling these clauses with impact of having direct influence" over the team's transfer policy (BLOOMBERG, 8/20).
