Spain: A Sports Overview

Professional Sport and Minors – Achieving a Balance

It is no secret that young athletes are getting involved in professional sport at an increasingly early age.

Clubs seeking to protect their investment in training, and sports agents looking to find the next star, co-exist with young athletes, who dream of being able to pursue a professional career in sport, emulating their idols. All of them seek advice on how best to protect their interests, and this is something that legal advisers in sports law must be prepared for. In this situation, it is necessary to balance the protection of the free development of minors with the interests of clubs, agents and other stakeholders.

It is widely acknowledged that FIFA prohibits the transfer of minors, with a limited number of exceptions that are subject to restrictive interpretation and require appropriate verification in all cases. Other federations do not exhibit the same level of rigour or protectiveness with regard to minors.

In this overview, the focus will be on two contentious points: firstly, the relationship between sports clubs in terms of retaining young talent and recouping investments made in youth academies; and secondly, the relationship between sports agents and underage players, particularly in light of the CJEU ruling of 20 March 2025, which, for the first time, applied Directive 93/13 to a young athlete represented by his parents who was seeking to enter professional sport with the assistance of a sports agent.

In addressing the challenging equilibrium between the interests of sports clubs and the promotion of the free and comprehensive development of minors engaged in sporting activities, the Supreme Court of Spain provided a resolution in a case that came to be known as Caso Baena (STS 26/2013 of 5 February). In this case, a minor, assisted by his parents, entered into a training contract with Fútbol Club Barcelona at the age of 13, which included a ten-year employment contract. The minor was obliged to sign this contract when he reached the legal age of 16, with the stipulation that failure to do so would result in the imposition of a penalty clause amounting to EUR3 million.

The Spanish Supreme Court began its ruling by referring to the “common practice of contracting a minor for training and securing his services as a future professional football player through the simultaneous signing of a professional player contract and a pre-employment contract". The court then declared the “pre-employment contract” and, consequently, the penalty clause included therein, as contrary to the limits inherent in public policy regarding the recruitment of minors and thus, null and void.

The court emphasised that this was particularly true with regard to protecting the best interests of the minor in personal decisions about their professional future as an essential requirement for the development of their free personality.

This leads us to venture that the same arguments can be used in any state governed by the rule of law, since in addition to national laws, including those of constitutional rank, the Supreme Court refers to international law standards such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Charter of the Rights of the Child.

Notwithstanding the compelling arguments advanced by the Supreme Court, the issue remains unresolved, with numerous clubs continuing to utilise this “mixed formula” of a training contract plus a pre-contract to secure the professional services of minors once they attain the legal age to be considered workers and therefore professionals.

With regard to the relationship between an agent and their clients when the latter are minors, protection may come from the federation itself (as in the case of FIFA, which establishes special rules for agents representing underage footballers), while other federations do not even provide specific regulations for agents/representatives of athletes.

It appears, however, that the CJEU ruling of 20 March 2025 provides a novel and interesting perspective on the problem that arises when an athlete aspires to enter the labour market and, to that end, signs a contract with an agency specialising in the representation and management of athletes.

The ruling resolves a preliminary question on the application of European consumer protection regulations to a case involving a minor represented by their parents who signed a contract with an agency, and it may also be applicable to any professional athlete seeking their first professional contract.

This is the first time that the concept of “consumer” has been addressed in the field of sport.

The case under consideration can be summarised as follows: a minor Latvian basketball player, represented by his parents, contracts the services of an agency for the purpose of developing his career. The duration of the contract is 15 years, and the athlete is obliged to pay 10% of his total income whenever this exceeds EUR1,500 per month throughout the agreed duration. Ten years later, the agent claims more than EUR1.5 million.

The lower courts in Latvia dismissed the claim on the grounds that the contract did not comply with national consumer protection rules, and the Supreme Court referred the matter to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on whether the concept of “consumer” can be applied to the field of sport.

The ruling rendered by the CJEU primarily applies Articles 17, 24 and 51 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 2(b), Article 3(1), Article 4(2), Article 5 and Article 6(1) of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts, and determines the following:

• Consumer protection directives apply to contracts for the provision of services supporting the career development of athletes entered into between a professional representative and a minor or “promising young athlete” represented by their parents when they are not yet professionally active.
• The examination of the clause can only be carried out by the judicial body if it is abusive because it is not drafted in a clear and comprehensible manner.
• The existence of an imbalance between the parties and of unfairness must be assessed in the light of the applicable rules of national law.
• In the event of the clause being declared unfair, the only available course of action is for it to be wholly declared null and void, as opposed to being moderated.
• In order to assess the unfair nature of the clause in question, account must be taken of the fact that the consumer was a minor at the time the contract was concluded and that the contract was concluded by the minor’s parents on the minor’s behalf.
• In order to determine the application of consumer rules, one must consider the time at which the contract was concluded, without it therefore being relevant that the initial consumer became a professional (in this case, a successful sportsman).

The practical application of the conclusions of the aforementioned ruling is greatly complicated by the numerous references to national courts and the need to analyse each case individually to determine whether or not a clause is unfair, taking into account all the circumstances. This further highlights the crucial role that lawyers specialising in sports law must play when advising clients who may be affected by this kind of situation.