Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) v. Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)

III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

5. This section of the award sets out a brief summary of the main relevant facts, as established by the Parties’ written submissions, the CAS file, and the evidence given in the course of the hearing that took place on 21 May 2015. Additional facts are set out, where material, in other parts of this award.

A. The GFA’s first application for FIFA membership in 1991

6. On 21 March 1991, GFA submitted an application to FIFA seeking FIFA membership. After receiving the application, by letter of 28 March 1991 FIFA asked the Football Association of England (hereinafter the “FA”) and the Football Association of Spain (the Real Federación Española de Fútbol, hereinafter the “RFEF”) for their views on GFA’s application “in view of the particular status of the territory of Gibraltar” and of the fact that both associations are “entities directly involved in this matter”.

7. On 3 April 1991, the Minister for Sport of Gibraltar, having received from GFA a copy of the letter of 28 March 2011, wrote to FIFA that “there is no question as to the particular status of the territory of Gibraltar. It is a dependent territory of the United Kingdom and the Constitution of Gibraltar clearly states that it will continue to be so unless the people of Gibraltar freely and democratically choose

otherwise…. We can understand your approach to the Football Association in London, but the fact remains that Spain is our neighbour, as is Portugal”.

8. In response, the then FIFA Secretary General, Mr Joseph Blatter, explained that “when asking to have the viewpoints of two of its affiliated National Associations, FIFA clearly chose to deal with the matter on a sporting and not political basis”.

9. On 16 December 1991, the FIFA Executive Committee declined to forward GFA’s application to the FIFA Congress and rejected its application for membership (hereinafter also the “1991 FIFA Decision”), because inter alia Gibraltar “is dependent upon the United Kingdom” and “has virtually no autonomy” and “with regard to the extremely special nature of [Gibraltar’s] territory’s geographical and political position, accepting its independence on sporting grounds would set important precedents for our organisation that would be contrary to the consistent policy of FIFA in such matters”.

10. It is disputed whether GFA accepted the 1991 FIFA Decision. GFA denies that it did, arguing that ever since that decision, it “has consistently pointed out the unequal treatment that it has received from FIFA in comparison to other football associations and has consistently sought to take the relevant steps to become a FIFA member…”. In particular, it refers to its letter of 8 January 1997 (see infra at para. 11). For its part, FIFA argues that even if GFA may not have “accepted” the 1991 FIFA Decision, it manifestly did not challenge it before a Swiss court (At the time, FIFA had not yet accepted the jurisdiction of CAS).

B. GFA’s second application for FIFA membership in 1997 and its transfer to UEFA

11. On 8 January 1997, GFA submitted a second application to FIFA seeking FIFA membership under the 1996 FIFA Statutes. GFA commented, inter alia, that: “1. In 1991 [the GFA] applied for the very first time to become members of F.I.F.A. This was declined basically because Spain had raised an objection on political grounds, contrary to the statutes of F.I.F.A in Article 2 which states: There shall be no discrimination against a country or an individual for reasons of Race, Religion, or Politics. 2. At the time we were informed that with regards to the extremely special nature of our territory’s geogra[ph]ical and political position, accepting its independence on sporting grounds would set important precedents… 3. Since our initial application almost 6 years have elapsed… newly declared states within the previously known territories of the Soviet Union, have all been accepted into FIFA without objections even though politically unstable. 4. Recently we have seen Guam, British Virgin Islands and Palestine joining FIFA… 5. In Para. 2 above, we were informed that accepting Gibraltar independence in sporting grounds would set important precedents. This is difficult to understand when we are purely relating to sporting matters and an example of this is the acceptance of [many Gibraltarian associations] as members of the world governing bod[ies]... In conclusion we strongly believe that in our initial application we were discriminated upon solely on the grounds that Spain had raised an objection based on her political claim of Gibraltar which has been in existence for the last three hundred years…”.

12. The admission process for FIFA membership under the 1996 FIFA Statutes was as follows: – First, the applicant football association was required to file a written request to become a FIFA member. Along with this request, the applicant had to submit certain relevant documents, including: (i) a declaration that the applicant would conform at all times to the FIFA Statutes and regulations, as well as with the decisions of FIFA and of the continental confederations (the “Confederations”); (ii) a declaration that it would observe the Laws of the Game; (iii) a copy of its own Statutes and regulations; and (iv) a file containing details of its internal organization and the sports infrastructure in its country (see Article 4, paras. 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes, infra at para. 104). – Next, if FIFA considered the applicant’s file to be complete, it would, in light of the requirements that an applicant must be “a provisional member of a confederation for at least two years”, forward the applicant’s file to the Confederation territorially responsible for the applicant (in the case of GFA that would be UEFA) (See Article 4, paras. 1 and 6 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes, infra at para. 104). – Thereafter, the Confederation would decide whether to grant the applicant provisional membership or full membership and, if so, would monitor the applicant’s conduct for a period of two years before compiling a detailed report and sending it to FIFA (See Article 1, paras. 1 and 2 of the 1996 Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, infra at para. 106). – At that point, on the basis of the Confederation’s report, the FIFA Executive Committee would decide “whether or not” to submit the application for FIFA membership to the FIFA Congress (See Article 2 of the 1996 Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, infra at para. 107). – Finally, the FIFA Congress would definitively decide whether to grant full FIFA membership to the applicant (See Article 3 of the 1996 Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, infra at para. 108).

13. On 31 May 1997, the FIFA Executive Committee met and discussed, among other matters, GFA’s case. In the relevant minutes it is recorded that “[w]hereas The Football Association has no objection to the Gibraltar FA becoming a FIFA member, the Spanish FA is strongly opposed to it. Several other sports associations in Gibraltar have become independent members of their international federations (e.g. athletics, boxing, hockey, swimming, volleyball and basketball). FIFA will complete the file for submission to the next Executive Committee meeting”.

14. On 16 June 1997, FIFA’s then Deputy Secretary General, Mr Michel Zen-Ruffinen, communicated to GFA that: (i) the FIFA Executive Committee had mandated the FIFA General Secretariat to further examine the GFA’s application for affiliation; and (ii) even though the GFA’s Statutes essentially conformed to FIFA’s provisions, FIFA would in any case transmit to GFA a copy of model statutes in order to enable GFA to adapt its own Statutes in such a way as to achieve complete compliance with FIFA’s requirements.

15. On 13 October 1997, GFA filed a report in support of its FIFA membership application.

16. On 11 November 1997, FIFA, through the then Secretary General, Mr Blatter, acknowledged receipt of the new draft of the GFA’s Statutes and indicated that they conformed on the whole

with FIFA provisions. He stated, however, that FIFA would have liked to meet some of the representatives of GFA in order to discuss the overall structure of GFA’s Statutes and some important points related to them. Mr Blatter further expressed FIFA’s wish to organize a meeting with GFA in Zurich in December 1997 and instructed GFA to contact Mr Vincent Monnier to make the necessary arrangements.

17. On 27 November 1997, the FA confirmed to FIFA that it “thoroughly support[ed]” GFA’s FIFA membership application.

18. On 10 December 1997, Mr Joseph Nuñez and Mr Albert Buhagiar, the Chairman and Secretary General of GFA, respectively, met with Mr Vincent Monnier of FIFA at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich. According to Mr Nuñez’s notes of this meeting (drafted on 12 December 1997): (i) the attendees discussed GFA’s statutes and the procedure/logistics necessary to arrange a FIFA visit to Gibraltar; (ii) Mr Monnier on more than one occasion declared that FIFA would not permit politics to enter the matter of GFA’s FIFA membership application; and (iii) Mr Zen-Ruffin (introduced to GFA representatives at the end of the meeting) expressed the expectation that the next time he would see the GFA representatives would be at the FIFA Congress after the GFA’s application had been approved.

19. On 27 May 1998, the FIFA Executive Committee (i) deferred the FIFA membership application of GFA, as well as those of Bhutan and Greenland, and (ii) submitted the applications of the football associations of Palestine, Eritrea, Turks and Caicos, US Virgin Islands and American Samoa to the 1998 FIFA Congress, noting that a “long and heated debate ensued with regard to accepting certain of the above-mentioned associations as members since the statistics showed that they had very few players and clubs and/or did not have complete sovereignty over their territories. However, since membership had been granted in the past in similar cases, it was decided that all these applications be submitted to the Congress now but that a special committee be set up specifically to scrutinise all future applications for affiliation on the basis of strict criteria”.

20. On 27 October 1998, Mr Nuñez, Mr Buhagiar and Mr Dennis Nuza, representatives of GFA, again met with Mr Monnier. According to a note Mr Nuñez drafted on 28 October 1998, Mr Monnier explained that “there was no reason whatsoever for FIFA not to continue to abide by its own statutes and continue to process the GFA application since there was nothing untoward in said application” and that even if Mr Villar, a member of the FIFA Executive Committee and President of the RFEF, “managed to persuade the FIFA Executive Committee to submit a negative report on [GFA’s] application to the FIFA Congress, the fact of the matter was that the important vote was that of the Congress who would approve the application even in those circumstances”.

21. On 23 February 1999, at a meeting of the FIFA Associations Committee (then known as the National Associations Committee), Mr Monnier explained in relation to GFA’s case that “diplomatically this is a difficult situation but that discussions continue and a meeting is planned under UEFA”.

22. On 3 March 1999, FIFA wrote to GFA to confirm that the “preliminary procedure” was completed and that consequently it would, in accordance with Article 4, para. 6 of the 1996 Statutes, initiate “the second phase of the procedure (evaluation of the organisation for a period of at least two year)”. In this connection, FIFA also reminded GFA that, according to Article 4, para. 7 of the 1996 Statutes, the concerned Confederation (UEFA) would decide whether to grant GFA provisional or associate membership.

C. The transfer of the GFA’s application to UEFA

23. On 23 March 1999, UEFA informed GFA that FIFA had forwarded to UEFA its file for affiliation to FIFA and that, in order to continue with the affiliation procedure, GFA was invited to a meeting at UEFA headquarters in Nyon on 16 April 1999.

24. Following said meeting, on 19 April 1999, GFA submitted a file in support of its application for UEFA membership. The next day, by letter dated 20 April 1999, the then Deputy Secretary General of UEFA, Mr Markus Studer, thanked GFA for the “much appreciated presentation” and expressed that they were “highly impressed by the professional manner in which [GFA] presented [its] situation”. He went on to explain in the letter that the process now called for UEFA to examine GFA’s file thoroughly with FIFA and that, following a visit to Gibraltar in the fall, “we will make a recommendation for the UEFA Executive Committee to discuss at one of its meetings in winter 1999/2000”. Mr Studer also confirmed that the Executive Committee of UEFA would not make a final decision with regards to GFA’s UEFA membership until the year 2000.

25. At that time and until 11 October 2001 (see infra at para. 53), the English version of Article 5, para. 1 of the UEFA Statutes stipulated that “Membership of UEFA is open to national football associations situated in the continent Europe which are responsible for the organisation and implementation of football related matters in their particular territory”.

26. On 7 January 2000, UEFA informed GFA that the FIFA Associations Committee was in the process of reviewing the affiliation procedure rules and that it would thus not be able to give GFA any further information on its UEFA membership application until the FIFA Committee’s next meeting set to take place in March 2000.

27. On 19 January 2000, Mr Nuñez wrote to UEFA and declared that: (i) the on-going review of the FIFA affiliation procedure should not affect GFA’s application as it was made before the commencement of said review. Mr Nuñez explained: “To retrospectively apply procedural rules to a pending application would not appear to us to be appropriate especially if the review results in either greater hurdles having to be surmounted by the applicant or the application not being entertained”; and (ii) the fact that the UEFA inspection of GFA’s facilities had not yet taken place, even though it supposedly ought to have occurred by December 1999 at the latest, was a matter of concern to GFA. Mr Nuñez, therefore, sought assurances that UEFA was processing GFA’s application in accordance with the then applicable procedures.

28. On 27 January 2000, UEFA acknowledged receipt of the 19 January 2000 letter from GFA and indicated that it would “discuss with FIFA once more the procedure of affiliation which was agreed with [GFA] during [its] visit in Nyon”.

29. On 22 March 2000, the FIFA Associations Committee, according to the minutes of the meeting, “accepted that [GFA’s] file was still dealt with in compliance with the current statutes” and confirmed that a “FIFA/UEFA inspection visit” had been planned for May 2000.

D. The joint FIFA/UEFA delegation’s visit to Gibraltar

30. On 25 March 2000, UEFA communicated the following to GFA: “FIFA and UEFA administrations have discussed the application procedure for [GFA]. After having received also the green light

by the FIFA Committee for national associations we inform you that a joint FIFA/UEFA delegation will visit [GFA]”.

31. On 25 April 2000, UEFA provided GFA with the details of the joint FIFA/UEFA delegation and confirmed that Mr Monnier from the FIFA National Associations Department would be attending and accompanying three UEFA representatives.

32. On 8-10 May 2000 the joint FIFA/UEFA delegation conducted an inspection visit of GFA.

33. After the visit, Mr Monnier wrote to GFA to thank it for the “heartfelt welcome extended to the FIFA/UEFA delegation during its stay in Gibraltar and for the excellent organisation of the various meetings held with the officials of the GFA and the representatives of the sports authorities. Our discussions were both interesting and fruitful and will allow our two organisations to have a better understanding of the situation of football ’on the Rock’”.

34. On 11 July 2000, the UEFA delegation issued an “Inspection Report” on GFA (based on its file and the visit of 8-10 May 2000). In it, UEFA noted that the FIFA Executive Committee had rejected GFA’s 1991 application “for political reasons, as a result of objections raised by Spain on the basis of various stipulations in the FIFA Statutes”. The delegation recommended that GFA be admitted to UEFA on a provisional basis under three cumulative conditions, reasoning inter alia that GFA “fulfils all the requisite statutory conditions for admission to UEFA” and that “for purely political reasons, and apparently through the pressure of its politicians, the [RFEF] has so far refused to give its consent”. The three cumulative conditions were: (i) that GFA would be able to take part in the UEFA’s youth, women’s and amateur competitions from the 2001/2002 season at the earliest; (ii) that the football infrastructure in Gibraltar’s territory correspond to the requirements for said competitions by the time of entry for said competitions; and (iii) that the GFA’s Statutes be adapted to UEFA’s requirements by the start of the 2001-2002 season.

35. On 24 July 2000, UEFA informed GFA that the Inspection Report would be submitted to the UEFA Executive Committee at its next meeting on 25-26 August 2000 and that the UEFA Administration would be recommending its Executive Committee to accept GFA as a provisional member of UEFA.

E. Amendment of UEFA Statutes and postponement of GFA’s application

36. On 3 August 2000, the FIFA Executive Committee, at its meeting in Zurich, discussed Gibraltar’s case. In the minutes of that meeting, the FIFA Executive Committee noted: “The conclusions of the FIFA/UEFA Inspection in May had been positive. UEFA would probably take a decision shortly as to the possible admission of this organisation”. Furthermore, the FIFA Executive Committee “agreed to the FIFA President’s suggestion that the rules for affiliating new member national associations should be revised for inclusion in the new version of the Statutes for 2004 and that no more members should be admitted in the meantime”.

37. On 9 October 2000, GFA updated FIFA on the steps it had taken towards achieving UEFA membership by forwarding its correspondence with UEFA.

38. On 29 August 2000, UEFA informed GFA that the UEFA Executive Committee had decided in its meeting of 26 August 2000 to: (i) postpone the decision concerning the provisional UEFA membership of GFA until its next meeting of 4-5 October 2000; and (ii) hold a meeting

between the FA, the RFEF and UEFA to discuss GFA’s case. This meeting did not take place until 30 November 2000. Despite GFA’s request, UEFA did not permit GFA to attend this meeting, as it considered it an “internal meeting” and considered GFA’s presence unnecessary “since… the UEFA Administration is in favour of your application”.

39. On 5 September 2000, the Secretary General of the RFEF demanded FIFA to explain “when how and why [FIFA] apparently submitted to UEFA the affiliation application for the supposed Football Federation of the British Colony of Gibraltar”.

40. On 15 December 2000, UEFA informed GFA that the UEFA Executive Committee had decided in its meeting of 14-15 December 2000 that independent legal advice was necessary to evaluate GFA’s UEFA membership application and that, therefore, a panel of three independent legal experts (hereinafter the “UEFA Expert Panel”) would be constituted to prepare a substantiated legal report for the UEFA Executive Committee.

41. On 15 and 16 March 2001, the FIFA Executive Meeting discussed GFA’s case. The relevant minutes state: “Gibraltar: a meeting had taken place last November between the English and Spanish FAs and a committee of experts had been assigned to report on the validity of Gibraltar’s application for membership and its conformity with the FIFA Statutes. The FIFA President said that Ángel María Villar’s opposition on the part of the Spanish FA to Gibraltar becoming a FIFA member would be given due consideration”.

42. On 11 and 12 July 2001, the UEFA Executive Committee met and proposed an amendment to the UEFA membership criteria to the effect that an association could become a member of UEFA only if its headquarters were located in a country which was an independent state recognized by the United Nations.

43. On 30 July 2001 and 20 August 2001, GFA expressed its concern that no legal report had yet been issued by the UEFA Expert Panel and asked for an update on its application.

44. On 27 August 2001, the UEFA Expert Panel rendered its legal report to the UEFA Executive Committee. In said report, the Expert Panel unanimously agreed that according to Article 5, para. 1 of the UEFA Statutes (see supra at para. 25) and Articles 1 and 2 of the Regulations Governing the Implementation of the UEFA Statutes, “the GFA was entitled to provisional admission as a member of UEFA”. However, it advised the UEFA Executive Committee that “to avoid similar problems in the future” it should amend the UEFA Statutes “to the effect that only UNrecognised states may apply for admission to and membership of UEFA”.

45. On 30 August 2001, UEFA informed GFA that the UEFA Expert Panel had rendered its report and indicated that the UEFA Executive Committee would discuss it at its meeting of 6-8 September 2001, where it would also take a decision regarding the application of GFA. It did not, however, make the legal report available to GFA. UEFA also pointed out that the provisions on UEFA membership were expected to be amended at the next Extraordinary UEFA Congress in October 2001.

46. Following the issuance of the UEFA Expert Panel’s report, the RFEF, on 3 September 2001, contacted FIFA seeking confirmation that “the UEFA’s current Statutes (edition 2000) have been approved by FIFA’s Executive Committee, as set forth in Article 9.5 of the UEFA Statutes”.

47. The same day, the RFEF sent to the then President of FIFA, Mr Joseph Blatter, a letter in which it criticized the UEFA Expert Report for being concluded in a forced manner and from

a viewpoint of pure legal theory, and, further, for being unconvincing on many points. The RFEF went on to comment as follows: “What is UEFA’s goal in pursuing this rash membership approval through the back door, claiming that it is FIFA’s responsibility, as they were the ones who submitted the file to UEFA for review? We do not understand such haste since, in a relatively short period of time, the Congress will approve an amendment to the statutes that will settle this issue. The matter involved a dispute between two European Union countries, and requires the utmost impartiality (Art. 1, UEFA Statutes). It is also astonishing that the report in question claims that UEFA freely determines the admission of members because there is “no contractual relationship” with FIFA. On this point, and in order to stop laying the blame at FIFA’s door for initiating the problem, i.e. sending the file in due time with Gibraltar’s application for membership, we advise FIFA to urge UEFA to freeze the file. …We stress, moreover, that even the UEFA itself has come to recognize and agree with this statement by understanding that, in order to avoid this type of problem in the future, the UEFA Statutes should be amended to specify that only countries recognized by the UN may request membership in UEFA. This amendment will take place in Prague in 36 days. So it is reasonable to halt the process, reject it, or, barring this, wait until the Congress approves the next text which would resolve the matter definitively”.

48. The next day, on 5 September 2001, the then Secretary General of FIFA, Mr Zen-Ruffinen, wrote to UEFA that it would be premature to proceed with the affiliation of GFA in the forthcoming months because FIFA was planning to change its criteria for membership. More specifically, Mr Zen-Ruffinen stated: “Nous avons été contactés par la Fédération Espagnole de Football au sujet du dossier relatif à l’affiliation de Gibraltar à votre Confédération. En matière, nous aimerions vous faire part, qu’à notre sens il serait prématuré de procéder à l’affiliation de cette association dans les prochains mois. En effet, comme vous le savez, la FIFA procédera d’ici à l’année de son centenaire à la révision totale de ses statuts. Dans ce cadre, les dispositions concernant l’affiliation des associations nationales et en particulier les articles relatifs aux conditions devant être remplies pour une demande d’affiliation seront précisés et feront l’objet de règles extrêmement précises”.

49. On 7 September 2001, UEFA wrote to GFA announcing that the decision on the latter’s application for membership would be postponed until further notice, given that the UEFA Executive Committee had decided to change the criteria for becoming a UEFA member. The relevant portion of this letter reads: “1. The [UEFA] Executive Committee did not enter into the request of the [GFA] to be provisionally affiliated to UEFA. The UEFA Executive Committee has already discussed and decided at its July 2001 meeting to change the membership conditions in the UEFA Statutes. These proposals will be dealt with by the UEFA member associations at the next extraordinary Congress in Prague in October 2001. In the meantime, UEFA has been informed by FIFA that the FIFA membership conditions are also currently under discussion and that FIFA wishes that both FIFA and UEFA membership conditions have the same requirements. Consequently, UEFA is presently not in a position to accept any new affiliations until this discrepancy is solved.

2. The decision concerning the affiliation request of the [GFA] is therefore postponed until further notice. […]”.

50. As of September 2001, GFA repeatedly requested UEFA to make a decision on its application for provisional membership to UEFA without delay and on the basis of the UEFA membership criteria in force at the time when it submitted its application.

51. On 21 September 2001, UEFA confirmed to GFA that it had decided on 7 September 2001 to postpone any decision on GFA’s case until further notice and that it would therefore not discuss the issue until its next October 2001 meeting.

52. On 5 October 2001, senior officials of UEFA and of GFA held a meeting but did not reach a solution on the matter.

53. On 11 October 2001, the UEFA Congress approved the amendment to the UEFA membership criteria so that UEFA membership would only be granted to associations from countries recognized by the United Nations as independent States. The new provision read: “1. Membership of UEFA is open to national football associations situated in the continent of Europe, based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state, and which are responsible for the organisation and implementation of football-related matters in the territory of their country”.

54. On 13 November 2001, UEFA communicated to GFA that: (i) “the Executive Committee has so far not taken a negative decision on [its] application request but has only postponed its decision upon FIFA’s request” (emphasis in original); and (ii) it would not place GFA’s application on the agenda of the UEFA’s Executive Committee meeting “until FIFA established the necessary guidelines regarding membership. Therefore, the UEFA Executive Committee will not deal with the matter at its December meeting” (emphasis in original).

55. On 1 November 2001, the FIFA Associations Committee met and discussed, among other matters, that of GFA’s application. The relevant minutes of the meeting state: “UEFA judged that the application for affiliation should be put on ice until the FIFA Statutes have been adopted. Mr Ruhee said that this situation was unfortunate because Gibraltar’s file was excellent. This highly political file has been shelved for the moment until 2004”.

56. On 20 November 2001, GFA replied to UEFA that it considered that UEFA had acted illegally in this matter.

57. At its meeting of 8-9 March 2002, the FIFA Executive Committee, in discussing the case of New Caledonia FA, noted that “[a]fter drawing comparisons with the applications of Gibraltar and Zanzibar, which had been put on hold until 2004, the consensus opinion was that this item be taken off the Congress agenda”.

F. The first GFA v. UEFA arbitration before the CAS

58. On 26 April 2002, GFA informed UEFA that it understood UEFA’s position to be that it was not eligible for UEFA membership under the new membership criteria and that, therefore, its application would fail. GFA also declared that it considered as illegal: (i) UEFA’s treatment of GFA’s 1999 UEFA membership application under the revised membership criteria; and (ii) its decision to change the rules with retrospective effect in such a way as to prevent GFA from

becoming a member. Finally, it requested UEFA to accept CAS jurisdiction (which UEFA did on 12 July 2002).

59. On 16 August 2002, GFA filed a request for arbitration with the CAS (hereinafter the “First GFA-UEFA CAS case”).

60. On 22 October 2003 the CAS issued the award 2002/O/410 in which it ordered UEFA to decide, by no later than 31 March 2004, on GFA’s application for UEFA membership on the basis of the rules in force at the time when GFA filed the application (hereinafter the “First GFA-UEFA CAS Award”).

G. The 2004 amendment to the FIFA membership criteria

61. On 19 October 2003, the Extraordinary FIFA Congress decided to amend the criteria to become a FIFA member. According to the minutes of that Congress “the definition of the word ‘country’ should be amended to fall into line with the wording of the Olympic Charter, with the addendum reading: ‘In this context, the expression ‘country’ shall refer to an independent state recognised by the international community’”. The FIFA Congress also agreed that “an additional paragraph should be added stating that this article shall not affect the status of existing members”. On 1 January 2004, the revised Statutes entered into force (see Article 10 of the 2004 FIFA Statutes infra at para. 109).

62. It should be noted that between 1988 and said amendment entered into force in 2004, FIFA had admitted the following territories as members: – In 1988: Aruba (a part of Netherlands Antilles at the time of FIFA membership and now a Part of the Netherlands); and the Faroe Islands (a Danish possession now and at the time of FIFA membership). – In 1992: The Cayman Islands (a British Dependent Territory at the time of FIFA membership and now a British Overseas Territory). – In 1994: The Cook Islands (an Associated State, i.e. a self-government in free association with New Zealand, now and at the time of FIFA membership). – In 1996: Anguilla, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands (all British Dependent Territories at the time of FIFA membership and now British Overseas Territories); and Guam (a U.S. possession then and now). – In 1998: American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands (both U.S. possessions now and at the time of FIFA membership); Palestine (an occupied territory having the status in the United Nations of a “non-member observer state” now as well as at the time of achieving FIFA membership); and the Turks and Caicos Islands (a British Dependent Territory at the time of accession to FIFA membership and now a British Overseas Territory). – In 2004: New Caledonia (a French overseas territory now and at the time of FIFA membership).

63. On 31 October 2003, GFA took note of FIFA’s amendment and expressed its “firm opinion that the membership criteria applicable to [its] application for membership (which was filed in January 1997),

is that contained in the statutes of FIFA which were in force in 1997 and not those that will come into force on the 1st of January 2004 or at any time thereafter”. FIFA acknowledged receipt of said letter on 19 November 2003 and noted that it would take “due note of its content”.

64. On 29 February 2004, the FIFA Media Office reported that the FIFA Executive Committee had stated that “if Gibraltar officially applied for membership, it could not be admitted as a member according to the [new] FIFA Statutes”. This is confirmed in the minutes of the FIFA Executive Committee meeting of 29 February 2004, which read as follows: “The Court of Arbitration for Sport had recently set UEFA the deadline of 31 March 2004 by which to reach a decision on the Gibraltar Football Association’s application for affiliation. In response to a subsequent request from UEFA for input from FIFA, the Executive Committee noted that Gibraltar did not fulfill the conditions of admission laid down in article 10 paragraph 1 of the new FIFA Statutes, since it was a UK overseas territory and not ’an independent state recognised by the International community’. While the Associations Committee would discuss this issue at its next meeting, it was agreed that FIFA would advise UEFA that it would most likely not be possible for the Gibraltar Football Association to be affiliated to the world governing body”.

65. After GFA expressed surprise and objected to FIFA about its announcement of 29 February 2004, FIFA replied in two separate letters (both sent on 10 March 2004) explaining that “the discussions were held without prejudice on the matter whatsoever” and that “although the matter was discussed, no decision whatsoever was taken on the subject”.

H. The second GFA v. UEFA arbitration before the CAS

66. On 25 March 2004, the UEFA Executive Committee rejected GFA’s request for provisional membership to UEFA on the basis that: (i) UEFA’s decision as to whether to admit GFA on a provisional basis is made within a procedure which is prescribed by the FIFA Statutes and with a view to obtain FIFA membership; and in connection with the latter (ii) GFA did not fulfil the criteria for FIFA membership.

67. On 12 May 2005, GFA filed a second request for arbitration with the CAS (hereinafter the “Second GFA-UEFA CAS case”).

68. On 29 June 2005, the FIFA Executive Committee at its meeting in Frankfurt noted with regard to GFA’s case that “FIFA had lent its support to UEFA in denying the association associate member status and in rebuffing the appeal which had since been submitted to the Court of Arbitration for Sport”.

69. On 6 July 2006, the CAS issued the award 2005/O/880 in which it ordered that the UEFA Executive Committee admit GFA to provisional membership and that the UEFA Congress decide on GFA’s full membership in the spirit of that award and, in particular, on the basis of the rules applicable at the time when GFA filed its application for UEFA membership (hereinafter the “Second GFA-UEFA CAS Award”).

70. In a meeting of 5-6 December 2006, the FIFA Executive Committee rejected the RFEF President’s request that FIFA recommend the UEFA Congress to refuse to grant UEFA membership to GFA based on the latter’s failure to meet the FIFA membership criteria. The FIFA Executive Committee felt it was not in a position to make such a recommendation. Instead, according to the relevant minutes, it agreed to simply “write to UEFA to indicate that the GFA did not meet the requirements for affiliation to FIFA but not to make any recommendation to the UEFA Congress”.

71. On 7 December 2006, FIFA issued a communiqué in which it announced that “… the Executive Committee ruled that Gibraltar does not meet the statutory requirements to become a FIFA member”.

I. The third GFA v. UEFA arbitration before the CAS

72. On 8 December 2006, the UEFA Executive Committee admitted GFA to provisional UEFA membership and decided to submit to the UEFA Congress in Düsseldorf on 25-26 January 2007 the consideration of GFA’s application for full UEFA membership. Furthermore, it took note of the FIFA Executive Committee’s decision that GFA “does not meet the statutory requirements to become a FIFA member”.

73. On 25-26 January 2007, according to the official transcripts, the UEFA Congress rejected GFA’s application for full UEFA membership on the basis that: (i) Gibraltar did not qualify as a “country” and thus failed to meet the current criteria for FIFA membership; (ii) GFA’s stadium was located on disputed territory; and (iii) the question of GFA’s membership to UEFA had a political connotation (hereinafter the “UEFA 2007 Congress Decision”).

74. On 6 March 2007, GFA filed with CAS a request (entitled “Request for Arbitration/Statement of Appeal”) for a third arbitration (CAS 2007/O/1237, hereinafter the “Third GFA-UEFA CAS case”).

75. UEFA raised a number of jurisdictional objections to GFA’s Request for Arbitration/Statement of Appeal. The relevant CAS panel, on 3 July 2008, issued an award on jurisdiction rejecting UEFA’s objections. The majority of the panel ruled that the CAS did have jurisdiction to hear the dispute as an ordinary arbitration on the basis of Article 61 of the then applicable UEFA Statutes (hereinafter also the “GFA-UEFA CAS Jurisdiction Award”). One member of the Panel, on the other hand, also considered the CAS to have jurisdiction to hear the dispute but as an appeals arbitration on the basis of Article 62 of the same UEFA Statutes. Thereafter, on 27 August 2008, UEFA filed an action before the Swiss Federal Tribunal (“SFT”) to set aside the GFA-UEFA CAS Jurisdiction Award. On 22 December 2008, the SFT rejected said UEFA’s action and upheld the GFA-UEFA CAS Jurisdiction Award.

76. On 18 August 2011, the CAS panel issued the final award in the Third GFA-UEFA CAS case, in which it ruled that GFA was entitled to full UEFA membership and ordered UEFA to take all necessary measures to admit GFA to full UEFA membership without delay (hereinafter the “Third GFA-UEFA CAS Award”).

77. On 24 May 2013, the XXXVII Ordinary UEFA Congress held in London granted GFA full UEFA membership. This decision, in accordance with Article 20 of the UEFA Statutes, came into force on 24 August 2013, three months after the date of the UEFA Congress.

78. It should be noted that FIFA kept itself appraised of GFA’s case at UEFA (including all three CAS arbitrations), periodically discussing any on-going developments at its meetings of the FIFA Associations Committee and FIFA Executive Committee.

J. GFA’s “revival” and “resumption” of its 1997 application for FIFA membership

79. On 19 September 2013, having become an effective member of UEFA in the previous month, GFA wrote to FIFA to “revive and to confirm the resumption of GFA’s outstanding application for membership” submitted to FIFA on 8 January 1997 (see supra at para. 11).

80. According to the witness Mr Michael Van Praag (President of the football association of the Netherlands, member of the UEFA Executive Committee and member of the FIFA Associations Committee), in September 2013 he had a meeting with the then President of FIFA, Mr Blatter, for reasons unrelated to GFA’s membership application and, during that meeting, Mr Van Praag brought up the issue of GFA’s FIFA membership application. According to Mr Van Praag’s testimony, in the course of the conversation Mr Blatter acknowledged that there were other territories in the world that were in a similar political situation as Gibraltar and whose football associations were full FIFA members, citing five or six specific examples. Furthermore, according to Mr Van Praag, Mr Blatter exhibited a positive attitude towards GFA’s membership application, all the while noting that the decision of whether or not GFA would be granted membership was in the end up to the FIFA Executive Committee and not just him. Mr Van Praag also testified that he reported the content of that meeting to the former President of GFA, Mr Desmond Reoch.

81. On 11 October 2013, FIFA acknowledged receipt of GFA’s letter of 19 September 2013 and responded that it was in the process of analyzing the content of the received documentation and that it would revert to GFA in due course after proper assessment.

82. On 11 November 2013, FIFA informed GFA that its application was incomplete. FIFA explained that (i) its application did “not contain the mandatory information as defined in the applicable Regulations [Governing the Admission of Associations to FIFA]”; and (ii) that “it is not possible to assess the present application based on the documents submitted together with the GFA’s application made more than 16 years ago, in 1996. Instead, all documents shall be submitted in accordance with art. 3 of the Regulations”. FIFA set a deadline of 23 September 2014 for GFA to supplement its application.

83. In reply, on 15 November 2013, GFA sent a letter to FIFA in which it declared that, in order to continue complying “with the FIFA requirements, from time to time in force, as to the information that is to be provided in support of a pending and unresolved application for membership of FIFA”, it would fulfil FIFA’s request to update the information included in its 8 January 1997 application. This notwithstanding, GFA asserted that “the updating of this information neither will nor can alter the fact that the GFA application was made in 1997, and that accordingly it falls to be assessed by reference to the admission criteria then applicable, as unequivocally decided in CAS 2002/O/410 the Gibraltar Football Association v UEFA, award of 7 October 2003”.

84. On 14 February 2014, GFA and FIFA held a meeting at which, according to the minutes of the FIFA Associations Committee’s meeting on 17 March 2014, “FIFA communicated to GFA that the application initiated in 1997 had lapsed with the decision of the UEFA Congress 2007 (which was to terminate the status of the GFA as a provisional member of UEFA without having recognised the GFA as an ordinary member) without the proceedings at FIFA ever having begun”. According to Mr Van Praag’s testimony, this meeting was attended by Mr Jérôme Valcke (then Secretary General of FIFA), Mr Marco Villiger (Director of Legal Affairs of FIFA), Mr Markus Kattner, Mr Thierry Regenass (Director of the Member Associations and Development Division of FIFA), Mr

Desmond Reoch, Mr Michael Llamas (then GFA Vice-President) and Mr Dennis Beiso (GFA Chief Executive). Mr Van Praag testified that, at this meeting, Mr Valcke approached the GFA’s application for membership as a “new” application and declared that the GFA did not fulfil the requirements of Article 10 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes. The GFA representatives, supported by Mr Van Praag, were unable to persuade the FIFA representatives otherwise. However, according to Mr Van Praag, the FIFA representatives at the meeting accepted that, if GFA’s application had been treated as an “old” or “existing application”, then the FIFA Statutes existing at the time of application would have been applicable.

85. On 19 February 2014, GFA requested, as had apparently been agreed at the meeting of 14 February 2014, that FIFA explain the reasoning behind its belief that GFA’s application of 1997 could not be pursued.

86. On 21 February 2014, GFA submitted five dossiers of information to FIFA in accordance with FIFA’s request to update its application as per the Regulations Governing the Admission of Associations to FIFA (hereinafter the “2013 Admission Regulations”). Included in the dossiers was GFA’s acceptance of Article 3(1)(s) of the Admission Regulations, which requires as part of the contents for a FIFA membership application a “Confirmation [by the applicant] that all disputes regarding the application procedure shall be decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) headquartered in Lausanne (Switzerland)”.

87. On 19 March 2014, Mr Villiger, Director of Legal Affairs of FIFA, explained to GFA that its file had been transferred to the FIFA Associations Committee for consideration and that further information on its case would follow in due course. Mr Villiger further set out his personal opinion as to why GFA’s case may be considered a “new application” and not the continuation of its 1997 application, but reserved for the appropriate FIFA institutions the final decision, which he confirmed had not yet been taken. Mr Villiger explained in part: “At least from a substantive law perspective, I deem that admission proceedings could and can only begin once the relevant applicant has fulfilled the conditions required for an application; in casu, if it had completed at least a two-year membership in UEFA. In fact no further exchange of correspondence concerning the application for FIFA membership seems to have taken place, neither from FIFA nor from the GFA, after 3 March 1999 and FIFA did not undertake any action to progress with whatsoever that could lead anyone to conclude that acceptance proceedings had begun or were pending. Furthermore, it also appears evident that at least admission proceedings with respect to the GFA had lapsed – if one were to assume that they had ever commenced or were pending at FIFA – as a result of resolution of the UEFA Congress in 2007. From my point of view, this resolution terminated the status of the GFA as a provisional member of UEFA without having recognised the GFA as an ordinary member. No objection was raised to this resolution and as a result it then became final and binding regarding the proceedings initiated in 1997. Legally speaking, the ordinary proceedings before CAS subsequent to the aforementioned Congress and the UEFA resolution did not deal with the GFA’s objection to the resolution but instead sought to determine whether the GFA could become an ordinary member of UEFA. This is, from a legal perspective, to be regarded as a new application seeking to qualify as (provisional) member of UEFA and/or seeking to determine that the GFA has a right to be accepted and is, in principle, entitled to become a member of UEFA.

Thus, the application initiated in 1997 lapsed with the decision of the UEFA Congress 2007 without admission proceedings at FIFA ever having begun. This allows for the conclusion that the letter of 19 September 2013 constitutes in fact a new application by the GFA. Furthermore… the issue of lawfulness of decisions is to be assessed in accordance with the legal situation at the time the judgment is issued”.

88. On 24 March 2014, FIFA informed GFA that it had become evident that “one of the crucial aspects of the GFA application will be the question of whether or not the GFA represents a ’country’ in accordance with article 10 of the FIFA Statutes”. FIFA, characterizing the issue as one of substantive law, reserved the matter for the competent body at the relevant stage of the admission proceedings. FIFA further notified GFA that it had forwarded GFA’s application to UEFA as per the 2013 Admission Regulations, despite the substantive law issue that it might face later in the admission proceedings.

89. Upon receiving the file, UEFA responded to FIFA on 26 May 2014 simply confirming that GFA had UEFA membership. UEFA explained that “Given that [GFA] is already a full member of UEFA, it is not immediately clear why the file has been forwarded to [UEFA]. It is [UEFA’s] understanding that, while the application of the above-mentioned FIFA regulations makes sense in the case of associations which are not yet members of a confederation, the situation is different for an association such as the GFA, which is already member of a confederation, namely UEFA”.

90. On 20 June 2014, FIFA requested GFA to confirm whether UEFA’s letter should be treated as a “report with detailed information” pursuant to Article 8 of the 2013 Admission Regulations. GFA replied on 30 June 2014 that it considered the five dossiers sent on 21 February 2014 to be the relevant report. FIFA replied on 8 August 2014 that if GFA provided no further materials to UEFA by 18 August 2014, FIFA would assume that GFA “has refrained from requesting UEFA to submit a report according to art. 8 of the [2013 Admission Regulations]”.

91. On 14 August 2014, GFA confirmed that it had consulted with UEFA on the issue of the Confederation having to submit a “report with detailed information on the workings of the applicant” within the meaning of Article 8 of the 2013 Admission Regulations, but that UEFA, having never before filed such a report, was unaware of what sort of information it must contain. As a result, it requested that FIFA clarify the issue and that the deadline of 18 August 2014 be extended to allow for the preparation of that report.

92. On 18 August 2014, FIFA explained to GFA that, by means of its letter of 8 August 2014, it did not request that UEFA provide a report prior to 18 August 2014, but rather awaited GFA’s indication whether or not it would insist on such a report in accordance with Article 8 of the 2013 Admission Regulations. Due to the confusion, FIFA gave GFA until 24 August 2014 to submit that indication, failing which FIFA would assume that GFA was not requesting UEFA to submit the report envisaged by Article 8 of the 2013 Admission Regulations. It concluded by declaring that “with regard to the contents of the relevant report, we would like to inform you that this is a matter which would have to be dealt with primarily by UEFA. However, and should UEFA have any queries in this regard, it goes without saying that FIFA would be pleased to assist in clarifying any such queries”.

93. On 22 August 2014, GFA confirmed to FIFA that it had requested UEFA to submit a report as per the requirements stipulated in Article 8 of the Admission Regulations and indicated that UEFA would be contacting FIFA to request further clarification on the issue of what UEFA’s report should include, which it did do later that same day.

94. On 2 September 2014, FIFA clarified for UEFA that while the report should be specific, UEFA has full discretion to decide what its contents should be. FIFA added, however, that placing into a binder the contents of GFA’s website as the report would not suffice. FIFA pointed to the information referred to in Article 3 of the 2013 Admission Regulations, in particular paras. d), e), f), h) and j), as the kind of information that would have to be included, appropriately presented and confirmed, in the report.

95. On 8 September 2014, UEFA filed a 24-page report in accordance with Article 8 of the 2013 Admission Regulations and confirmed that GFA had become a full member of UEFA through the UEFA Congress decision of 24 May 2013 and that said decision came into force three months later on 24 August 2013 in accordance with Article 20 of the applicable UEFA Statutes.

96. On 19 September 2014, FIFA acknowledged receipt of UEFA’s report and confirmation and further indicated that GFA’s application would be submitted to the FIFA Associations Committee at its meeting of 22 September 2014 and subsequently, in accordance with Article 2, para. 1 of the Admission Regulations, to the FIFA Executive Committee at its meeting of 25 and 26 September 2014.

97. According to the minutes of the meeting of 22 September 2014 and the Chairman’s report, the FIFA Associations Committee debated GFA’s case and came to the conclusion that GFA did not satisfy Article 10, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes as it did not organize and supervise football in a “country” as defined by said statutes (i.e. “an independent state recognised by the international community”) and given that only one association could be recognized in each country. It therefore proposed for the FIFA Executive Committee to reject GFA’s application for FIFA membership. This account was confirmed by Mr Van Praag’s testimony at the hearing.

98. On 26 September 2014, FIFA sent GFA a letter in which it rejected GFA’s application for admission to FIFA membership (the “Appealed Decision”).

VI. PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE COURT OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT

131. On 17 October 2014, pursuant to Article R47 and R48 of the Code of Sports-related Arbitration (hereinafter the “CAS Code”), the Appellant filed a Statement of Appeal with the CAS to challenge the Appealed Decision taken on 26 September 2014.

132. On 14 November 2014, the Appellant filed its Appeal Brief, within which it made a request for production of documents.

133. On 13 January 2015, the Respondent, in accordance with an extension previously agreed upon between the Parties, filed its Answer.

134. On 16 January 2015, the Parties informed the CAS Court Office that they had agreed to a second round of written submissions with the following procedural timeline: the Appellant was to file its Reply by 10 March 2015 and the Respondent its Rejoinder by 6 May 2015. These deadlines were later on extended by agreements between the Parties to 12 March 2015 for the Appellant and to 8 May 2015 for the Respondent.

135. On 21 January 2015, in view of the Appellant’s request for production of documents pursuant to Articles R44.3 and R57 of the CAS Code, the Panel submitted to the Parties a so-called Redfern Schedule, requesting the Appellant to complete its portion within two weeks and the Respondent to do the same within two further weeks. Additionally, the Panel requested the Parties to submit, together with their respective second submissions, witness statements and expert reports from any witnesses or experts on whom they intended to rely.

136. On 4 February 2015, the Appellant submitted its part of the Redfern Schedule.

137. On 19 February 2015, the Respondent submitted its part of the Redfern Schedule.

138. On 24 February 2015, the Panel invited the Appellant to comment on the Respondent’s positions taken in the Redfern Schedule by no later than 27 February 2015, and the Respondent then to reply to the Appellant’s comments by no later than 4 March 2015. The Parties did so.

139. On 12 March 2015, the Appellant filed its Reply.

140. On 13 March 2015, the Panel partially granted the Appellant’s request for disclosure, ordering the Respondent to produce additional documents by 25 March 2015. The Panel granted the Appellant until 16 April 2015 to comment on the documents produced and the Respondent the opportunity to respond to the Appellant’s comments in its second submission due on 8 May 2015.

141. On 26 March 2015, the Respondent produced the requested documents.

142. On 16 April 2015, the Appellant submitted its comments on the documents produced.

143. On 11 May 2015, following the Panel’s decision to grant the Respondent an extension, the Respondent filed its Rejoinder. In the Rejoinder the Respondent answered to the Appellant’s comments concerning the Respondent’s disclosure of documents.

144. On 13 May 2015, the Panel, in view of the Appellant’s further request for disclosure made in its comments of 16 April 2015, ordered the Respondent to produce additional documents by 18 May 2015. Furthermore, the Panel indicated that the Parties would be afforded the opportunity to comment on the produced documents at the hearing.

145. On 18 May 2015, the Respondent produced the requested documents.

146. On 21 May 2015 a hearing was held at CAS headquarters. In attendance at the hearing were:

• For the Appellant: Messrs Adam Lewis QC, Ravi Mehta, Afshin Salamian and Michael Llamas (all as legal counsel for GFA), Mr Ivan Robba (Head of Legal for GFA), and Mr Dennis Beiso (CEO of GFA).

• For the Respondent: Messrs Antonio Rigozzi, Fabrice Robert-Tissot and Rolf Tanner (all as legal counsel for FIFA).

147. As for expert witnesses, Professor Gian Paolo Romano (for the Appellant), and Mr Benoît Keane and Professor Thomas Probst (for the Respondent) testified in person at the hearing. Professor Christine Chappuis (for the Appellant) testified by teleconference.

148. Finally, Mr Michael van Praag (factual witness called by the Appellant) also testified at the hearing by teleconference.

149. At the outset of the hearing, the Parties confirmed that they had no objections to the constitution and composition of the Panel.

150. At the end of the hearing, the Parties agreed to the filing of post-hearings briefs and acknowledged that the Panel had respected their rights to be heard.

151. On 28 May 2015, the Panel, as agreed by the Parties at the hearing, invited them to file posthearing briefs by no later than 30 June 2015.

152. On 23 July 2015, following the Parties’ agreements for extensions, the Parties submitted their post-hearing briefs.

153. On 26 August 2015, the Panel invited the Parties to file a simple statement of fees and expenses, which were duly submitted by both Parties.

VII. OVERVIEW OF THE PARTIES’ POSITIONS

154. The following is a summary of the Parties’ submissions and does not purport to give full account of every contention put forth by the Parties. Nevertheless, the Panel’s deliberations have encompassed all evidence and arguments submitted by the Parties.

VII.1 THE APPELLANT: GIBRALTAR FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

155. The Appellant challenges the Appealed Decision on the ground that the FIFA Executive Committee failed to assess GFA’s application for FIFA membership under the criteria applicable at the time of the filing of its application on 8 January 1997 – i.e. those set forth in the 1996 FIFA Statutes. The Appellant contends that it satisfied the membership criteria of said Statutes and that, therefore, the FIFA Executive Committee had the obligation to forward GFA’s application to the FIFA Congress for the latter to grant GFA full membership. The Appellant considers that FIFA improperly rejected GFA’s application because it changed the rules in the middle of the process, it was discriminated between associations in the same position, and it allowed political pressure – from the RFEF – to determine who could become a FIFA member.

156. With respect to the principal issues, the Appellant’s contentions are as follows:

A. The CAS has jurisdiction to hear the present dispute

157. CAS has jurisdiction over the present dispute on three grounds.

158. First, the present dispute is, pursuant to Article 67, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes (see supra at para. 116), an appeal against a final decision of a FIFA legal body, the FIFA Executive Committee. GFA has standing to appeal under said article because: “[its wording] provides no limitation as to the status of the party that challenges a decision passed by FIFA’s legal bodies. The focus on the provision is on the decision-making body rather than on the appellant. Thus, the FIFA Statutes must be read in favour of jurisdiction of CAS (favor arbitrii). Indeed, Article 10(3) of the 2014 FIFA Statutes specifically refers to an “Association wishing to become a Member of FIFA” and requires – as part of the application process – the relevant NFA “recognise the Court of Arbitration for Sport” in its statutes (Article 10(4)(c)). Similarly, Article 4(1)(a) provides that “[e]very person and organisation involved in the game of football is obliged to observe the Statutes […]”. Read together, therefore, the 2014 Statutes contemplate that applicants for FIFA membership are able to bring appeals against final decisions regarding their applications for membership to CAS”.

159. Second, an arbitration agreement was concluded pursuant to Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Regulations between the Parties on 21 February 2014. This contention was not a part of the Appellant’s initial pleadings but emerged in reaction to the Respondent’s jurisdictional objection set forth in its Answer, and is subject to the proviso that the agreement to arbitrate did not entail acceptance of the applicability of the substantive membership criteria in the 2014 FIFA Statutes. Thus, although the Appellant acknowledges that it accepted FIFA’s offer to arbitrate made in Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Statutes when, on 21 February 2014, it updated its 1997 application at FIFA’s request (see supra at para. 86), it clearly indicated on 15 November 2013 that the updating of its membership application would be without prejudice to the applicability of the rules in force at the time of GFA’s application, and in particular the substantive criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes (see supra at para. 83). The Appellant adds to this that FIFA continued processing the application without making any counter-comments on GFA’s reservation, meaning that, even if the reservation were considered a “counter-offer”, FIFA accepted it and therefore cannot now impose the substantive membership criteria of the 2014 FIFA Statutes. As to the scope of Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Regulations, the Appellant argues that (i) the provision’s wording – “all disputes regarding the application procedure” – read as a whole and interpreted as a matter of construction in no way limits the scope of arbitration, in particular with respect to the subjectmatter of the dispute or to the “new” or “old” characterization of its membership application; and (ii) even if the wording were not clear, “FIFA’s offer of arbitration should be given the meaning that would be attributed to it by the GFA on the assumption that FIFA would act in good faith by application of the principle of trust. It is obvious that FIFA cannot submit, in good faith that the GFA should have understood that its offer to arbitrate was contingent on the rejection of GFA’s own application”.

160. Third, CAS would be the natural forum for the dispute. The Appellant contends that, even if there were no formal arbitration agreement between the Parties, CAS should nonetheless have jurisdiction to hear the present appeal because: (i) “there is a corroborating policy within both parties to submit disputes arising out of their decision-making to CAS”; and (ii) the significant history between the Parties created a legitimate expectation for GFA that FIFA would recognize CAS as competent to deal with a dispute arising from its membership application.

B. Swiss law, EU law and general principles of law are applicable

161. The Appellant contends that, in addition to FIFA rules, Swiss law, EU law and general principles of law are applicable to the dispute. This contention has three foundations: (i) the Parties not having chosen rules of law and Switzerland being the seat of FIFA, Swiss law must apply to the dispute pursuant to Article R58 of the CAS Code; (ii) by virtue of Article 19 of the Swiss Private International Law Act of 18 December 1987 (“PILA”), the mandatory rules of EU law, including competition rules (Articles 101 and 102 TFEU) and free movement rules (Articles 45, 49 and 56 TFEU), are applicable; and (iii) given that FIFA is an international federation, it must abide by general principles of law in accordance with CAS jurisprudence.

C. The GFA and Gibraltarian footballers cannot access international football through the

British Associations

162. Neither the Appellant nor Gibraltarian footballers as individuals can participate in international football through one of the British Associations, such as the FA (to which the Respondent claims the GFA used to be formally affiliated). In particular:

• GFA is not, and has never been, formally affiliated to the FA. Historically, it had an informal relationship of cooperation, but the FA does not and has never treated such relationship as a basis for regulating players and clubs of Gibraltar, or for considering their players as part of its national team selection pool;

• as a football association of a British Overseas Territory, GFA cannot be compared to the associations of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are Crown Dependencies. Indeed, due to their proximity to the UK mainland, the football associations of the Crown Dependencies are treated as analogous to “county football associations”, i.e. internal subdivisions of the FA, and as different from the football associations of the British Overseas Territories, which are treated as foreign federations. Furthermore, “the misplaced comparison that FIFA attempts to make between Gibraltar (a UEFA member) and the Crown Dependencies (none of whom are UEFA members) would lead to absurd results – for instance, that a player could represent Gibraltar against England in a UEFAorganised competition but then be selected for the same English team in a FIFA-organised competitions. That cannot have been contemplated by the FIFA Statutes and would undermine the relationship between FIFA and its confederations”;

• the avenue for Gibraltarian footballers to compete internationally for one of the four British Associations is restricted by FIFA regulations. Indeed, based on Articles 5 to 8 of the 2014 FIFA Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes (see supra at paras. 118 to 120), Gibraltarian footballers can only play for one of the four British Associations if they satisfy an ancestry requirement or a residence/education requirement. The examples mentioned by FIFA of the well-known England internationals Matt Le Tissier (Guernsey born) and Graeme Le Saux (Jersey born) are wrong examples, as they (i) were born in Crown Dependencies, not an Overseas British Territory, and (ii) fulfilled the residency requirements of Article 6 of the FIFA Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes;

D. FIFA amended its Statutes in 2004 to prevent the GFA from obtaining FIFA

membership

163. The amendment to the FIFA Statutes in 2004 concerning membership criteria (see supra at para. 61 et seq.) did not arise from FIFA’s interest in keeping said criteria in line with those of the IOC (which as of 1996 defined the term “country” as “an independent State recognised by the international community”), but rather from its interest (emanating from political pressure from the RFEF and the Kingdom of Spain) in preventing GFA from becoming a FIFA member. In support, the Appellant invokes the facts that (i) FIFA waited almost eight years since the IOC amendment of the Olympic Charter in 1996 to alter its own Statutes; (ii) the FIFA Statutes were amended between the issuance of the First GFA-UEFA CAS Award and the

deadline (for UEFA to rule on the GFA’s application for UEFA membership) fixed by the CAS in that award; and (iii) the RFEF actively lobbied FIFA against GFA’s FIFA membership application (see e.g. the RFEF’s letters to FIFA dated 5 September 2000 and 3 September 2001, and FIFA’s letter to UEFA on 5 September 2001 supra at para. 39, 46-47 and 48, respectively).

E. The applicable membership criteria are those set forth in the 1996 FIFA Statutes

164. Initially, the Appellant’s Appeal Brief contended that the amendment to the FIFA Statutes in 2004 cannot apply retroactively to GFA’s application submitted in 1997, because (i) the retroactive application of new membership criteria would infringe the general principles of Swiss law, namely the principles of the non-retroactivity of laws, of acquired rights, and of security and predictability of law, which must all apply by analogy to the present dispute since “FIFA’s monopolistic position is comparable to the monopolistic position of the administrative state authorities”; and (ii) when there is a rule change of a substantive nature, such as the amendment to the notion of “Country” in 2004, the applicable law remains in principle that which was in force at the time of the pending application’s filing.

165. In response to FIFA’s argument to the effect that the 2014 FIFA Statutes should apply as a matter of contract law, the Appellant made the following submissions, with the support of a legal opinion written by Professors Christine Chappuis and Gian Paolo Romano:

• Membership in associations is acquired by contractual agreement, i.e. the exchange of an offer and acceptance with congruent terMs Further, an association is required to abide by its own statutes. However, the statutes by which an association must abide are not those in force at the time when it accepts or rejects the application for membership, since that would mean that “the association, which determines unilaterally its statutory conditions of membership, is not bound by an “offer” of any applicant that fulfill those applicable admission conditions and remains finally free to change unilaterally the conditions of admissibility of such an “offer” as far as it has not unilaterally expressed its acceptance”.

• Normally, applications for membership in a Swiss association constitute offers. However, an application for membership in an association with the status of FIFA is not comparable to a sale of car or adherence to a church choir association, given that FIFA is the leading world football association and has dominant position in that market. In that context, an agreement arises between the applicant and the association as a consequence of and at the moment that an applicant submits an application for membership that complies with the relevant terms and conditions set out in the statutes. This agreement “is based on an interplay between statutory provisions (which contain the membership conditions and the admission process) and mandatory legal provisions or principles (such as those developed under Swiss law in relation to the Sports associations enjoying a dominant position)”. From a contractual perspective, the mandatory rules and principles (applicable to FIFA as a monopoly holder) has the effect of turning the association’s invitation to offer into a firm offer, which is accepted at the moment when an applicant submits an application for membership that satisfies the conditions laid down in the association’s statutes. At this point in time, the parties enter into a legal pre-admission relationship (of a contractual nature), which, like any other contracts, cannot be unilaterally changed by

either party. The applicant obtains a “right to obtain admission” and the association a “obligation to grant admission”. Such a “right to obtain admission” should not be confused with rights and obligations acquired by an applicant when the admission contract is entered into. To sum up, “[a]s a matter of consequence, under Swiss law, the GFA has, at the time of filing its request for membership in 1997, already acquired a “right to admission” (with the FIFA’s corollary “obligation to grant admission”) as a consequence of its fulfilling the formal and substantive conditions laid down in the 1996 FIFA statutes and, therefore, FIFA’s change of statutes in 2004 cannot, as a matter of contract law, affect the GFA’s right to be admitted as a FIFA member (nor FIFA’s obligation to grant admission the GFA)”. It follows that GFA, although it did not formally acquire UEFA membership until 2013, i.e. after the rule change of 2004, it had satisfied the conditions for UEFA membership at least as early as August 2001 (the date on which the UEFA Expert Report was issued) or 2002 (at the beginning of the first GFA- UEFA CAS case that held GFA to be qualified for UEFA membership), and that the only reason it did not obtain UEFA membership at that time was that UEFA failed to comply with its obligation to admit GFA, forcing GFA to seek membership through a second and then third CAS case against UEFA. Furthermore, GFA’s right to membership is not time-barred under Swiss law because: (i) although said “right to obtain admission” existed in 2002, it could not be exercised against FIFA until it obtained the condition of being a UEFA member; (ii) the time necessary to obtain UEFA membership cannot be detrimental to GFA’s “right to obtain admission”; and (iii) GFA’s claim to FIFA membership cannot be time-barred as long as FIFA’s undue rejection results in a continuous violation of GFA’s personality rights (on which GFA’s right to membership is based). - FIFA’s application of the 2014 FIFA Statutes is a violation of good faith given that FIFA voluntarily delayed the treatment of GFA’s case and instigated or assisted UEFA’s delay so that it could implement the amendment to the term “Country” in 2004 before considering GFA’s application for FIFA membership. Therefore, FIFA must examine GFA’s application on the basis of the membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes.

166. In any event, the application of the intertemporal conflict of laws criteria lead to the same conclusion: the 1996 FIFA Regulations are applicable to the GFA’s membership application. In this connection, the Appellant states as follows: “Significant guidance and inspiration may be drawn from [the principles of intertemporal conflict of laws (Article 1-4 of the Final Title CC)] by way of analogy. Based on the principle of non-retroactivity of substantive laws, a new law may not affect substantive rights that have arisen – and are therefore ’droit acquis’ – under the old law, let alone suppress them altogether. Here the 2004 FIFA Statutes, which, in this context are analogous to the ’new law’, purpose to impose a new substantive requirement of being an ’independent state recognized by the international community’, which the GFA does not fulfill. However, such a statutory provision, being of substantive nature, cannot affect a right of GFA to be admitted, which had already arisen under the 1996 FIFA Statutes, which are analogous to the ’old law’, read in conjunction with the mandatory rule of Swiss law…”.

167. FIFA’s assertion that GFA’s 1997 application for FIFA membership lapsed with the effluxion of time and that, as a matter of Swiss law, it was terminated on 26 February 2007, with the

result that it was thereafter presenting a “new” application subject to the 2014 FIFA Statutes, is unsustainable for the following reasons:

• FIFA cannot rely on the unlawful conduct of the UEFA Congress in 2007 (see supra at para. 73), nor on the technicality that CAS accepted (by majority) jurisdiction in the third GFA-UEFA CAS case as an ordinary arbitration as opposed to an appeal arbitration (whereas GFA filed its appeal for arbitration on three grounds, one of which was an appeal arbitration). Doing so would be self-serving and fundamentally unfair in light of the history of the Parties’ relationship. Moreover, GFA did not have an obligation to challenge the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision before the ordinary Court of Nyon because, as a provisional member of UEFA already in 2006, GFA was subject to Articles 61 and 62 of the UEFA Statutes which granted CAS jurisdiction over such a dispute.

• In any case, given that the third GFA-UEFA CAS Award held UEFA’s actions to be unlawful and granted GFA full UEFA membership on the basis that GFA satisfied the relevant criteria of the applicable UEFA Statutes, any such “termination” must be considered “expunged”. In this respect: (i) the third GFA-UEFA CAS Award, overturning the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision, has an erga omnes effect on all persons interested in that award, even if not parties to the relevant CAS proceedings; (ii) GFA challenged the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision in a timely fashion, because under Swiss law, the time to challenge a decision starts to run when the appellant has full knowledge of the decision (here that would be when GFA received the reasons for the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision during pendency of the third GFA-UEFA CAS case); (iii) an appeal to the ordinary courts of Switzerland against the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision would have been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, since GFA’s status as a provisional member of UEFA required it to submit its disputes exclusively to CAS in accordance with the UEFA Statutes; and (iv) GFA did not accept, by proceeding to update its application in accordance with the 2013 Admission Regulations, that its membership application was a new one, as it had made a reservation to contrary effect on 15 November 2013.

168. Equally unsustainable is FIFA’s contention that if the Parties entered into an arbitration agreement on 21 February 2014 on the basis of Article (3)(1)(s) of the FIFA Statutes, it results in a “new” application and the GFA’s acceptance of the 2014 FIFA Statutes: (i) GFA’s letter of 19 September 2013 clearly expressed its intent to “revise and to confirm the resumption” of its membership application originally submitted in 1997, with the result that there was no “new” application in 2013 which could be subject to the post-2004 FIFA Statutes; and (ii) GFA made clear in its letter of 15 November 2013 that updating the file, as per FIFA’s request, in accordance with the 2013 Admission Regulations would not have altered the fact that GFA’s application was filed in 1997 and is, thus, to be governed by the 1996 FIFA Statutes.

F. The GFA satisfies the membership criteria set forth in the 1996 FIFA Statutes

169. The Appellant maintains that it satisfies the FIFA membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes. According to GFA, the provisions of the FIFA Statutes must be construed (i) with a purposive approach; (ii) in accordance with the meaning of its text, as it could or should be

understood in a given situation; and (iii) against FIFA as the party imposing the text of the provision (in dubio contra stipulatorem).

170. Further, the term “country” in Article 1, para. 2 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes must be interpreted consistent with the manner in which FIFA applied the provision at the time of GFA’s application – i.e. to include territories that are analogous to Gibraltar in terms of status, such as Bermuda (1962), Cayman Islands (1992), Anguilla (1996), British Virgin Islands (1996), Montserrat (1996) and Turks and Caicos Islands (1998), all of which are British Overseas Territories – and need not be understood in its common political meaning, but rather in accord with the provision’s purpose.

171. The Appellant rejects (i) FIFA’s assertion that said other territories were admitted on the basis of Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes or Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes, and (ii) that GFA is distinguishable from said territories based on its alleged status as a “unique case” and as a “disputed territory”, noting that FIFA has failed to satisfy its burden of proving either claim.

172. Gibraltar’s alleged status as “disputed territory” has no bearing on whether GFA satisfies the membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes or the 2014 FIFA Statutes; it does not advance FIFA’s defence. This factor cannot legitimately be given weight since, inter alia, (i) it is not identified in any editions of the FIFA Statutes or the 2013 Admission Regulations, or in the Appealed Decision, or in any correspondence from FIFA to GFA between 1997 and 1999, or after FIFA transferred the file to UEFA, or during the FIFA/UEFA joint delegation’s inspection of May 2000, or in the 1991 FIFA Decision; (ii) it is a political consideration which in view of Article 3 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes can be given no weight; (iii) in any event, there is no legitimate dispute, as Spain ceded Gibraltar to the United Kingdom in 1713 pursuant to Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht; and (iv) it would be inconsistent with FIFA’s application of its membership criteria to other “disputed” or “sensitive” but nevertheless accepted territories such as Chinese Taipei, Palestine and Timor-Leste.

173. The Appellant rejects any comparisons to Northern Mariana Islands FA and the Zanzibar FA, as those federations, due to the timing of their application, are subject to criteria first implemented in the 2004 FIFA Statutes, which require that an association be responsible for organizing football in “an independent state recognised by the international community”.

174. The Appellant thus satisfies the membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes, which did not impose on any applicant the requirement that it be “an independent state recognised by the international community”.

175. In addition, even though the FIFA Executive Committee Decision of 1991 referred to the “extremely special nature of [Gibraltar’s] geographical and political position”, FIFA did not raise such objection following the GFA’s 1997 application. Had there been any significant problem with eligibility in 1997 for this or any other reason, FIFA would have said so and would neither have allowed the application process to continue, nor spent two years completing the first step before transferring the file to UEFA. The extensive contacts between FIFA and GFA in those years cannot be explained by the need to confirm that the file was complete; there would have been no reason to transfer the file to UEFA if FIFA considered that GFA’s application for FIFA membership had no merit.

176. The Appellant rejects the Respondent’s assertion that it did not change the concept of “country” in 2004, but rather simply codified its allegedly already-existing meaning of “an independent state recognized by the international community”. The Appellant denies the relevance of the Swiss Federal Tribunal’s judgment in GOC v. IOC (Decision 5A_21/2011 of 10 February 2012), on which the Respondent relies; that case is distinguishable on the following grounds: (i) the Olympic Charter gave “large discretion” to the IOC in defining the notion of “country”, whereas in the present case FIFA has no such discretion; (ii) the changes to the Olympic Charter had been under discussion since the 1980s, i.e. before GOC’s application, and the IOC informed GOC of those discussions at the outset of its application process, whereas in the present case it took three years after the GFA filed its application for FIFA to commence discussions on amending its membership criteria; and (iii) the IOC did not admit similar territories after 1987, i.e. several years prior to the GOC filing its application, whereas in the present case FIFA admitted all other analogous applications aside from that of GFA.

177. In any event, GFA has satisfied Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes (and continues to satisfy Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes), as it is an association “in a region which has not yet gained independence” that has “the authorisation of the national association of the country on which it is dependent”, i.e. the FA. FIFA accepted New Caledonia with the support of the French Football Federation (as admitted by Respondent) and Palestine with the support on the country on which it is arguably “dependent”, Israel (as disclosed in the Minutes of the 51 st Ordinary FIFA Congress in Paris on 7/8 June 1998). With regard to the territories of Catalonia, North Ossetia and Kosovo, the Appellant notes that these territories lie within the geographical territory of the relevant country on which their respective associations depend on for purposes of Article 1(5); therefore, they are not in a comparable situation to GFA. Finally, the Appellant disagrees that Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes and Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes require a region to “be on the way to independence”.

G. There are legal constraints on FIFA’s freedom of action under Swiss law

178. Although an association incorporated under the laws of Switzerland may freely accept or refuse any applicant even if the applicant fulfils all statutory conditions, that discretion is subject to a number of legal constraints under Swiss law, derived from (i) personality rights (Article 28 of the Swiss Civil Code or “CC”), (ii) the obligation to act in good faith (Article 2 CC), and (iii) competition law under the Swiss Cartel Act, as FIFA holds a dominant position in the market. FIFA has crossed the line of those legal constraints and the Panel should consequently “step into the shoes” of FIFA and declare GFA a member of FIFA with immediate effect.

179. As to the first legal constraint, FIFA has violated GFA’s personality rights pursuant to Art. 28 CC because: - FIFA enjoys a monopolistic position in the worldwide organization of football and thus does not have an absolute freedom to exclude members; instead, as a monopoly holder, FIFA has the duty to admit an applicant to FIFA membership so long as (i) that applicant satisfies the applicable membership criteria and (ii) there are no justified grounds for the non-admission. Since FIFA refused to admit GFA, despite GFA having satisfied the FIFA membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes and FIFA having

admitted under the same regulations football associations of other territories comparable to Gibraltar, it has acted in a discriminatory manner and violated GFA’s rights under Article 28 CC, particularly its right to engage in sporting and economic activities through its participation in FIFA.

• FIFA’s infringement of said personality rights is not justified by any overriding interest: (i) GFA does not need to fulfil the 2014 FIFA Statutes since FIFA has an obligation of a contractual nature, created at the moment that GFA filed its application in 1997, which prevents FIFA from applying any substantive criteria other than those included in the 1996 FIFA Statutes. Therefore, the allegation that GFA fails to satisfy the “country” requirement of the 2014 FIFA Statutes and that this is a legitimate reason for refusing its membership application is incorrect; the 1996 FIFA Statutes apply, and GFA has satisfied them. (ii) FIFA is not authorized to reject GFA’s application on the ground that Gibraltar is allegedly a “disputed” or “sensitive” territory. In this respect, FIFA has failed to prove that (a) Gibraltar is a “disputed” or “sensitive” territory in any real sense; (b) the characterization of a “disputed” or “sensitive” territory is sufficient to distinguish GFA’s situation with respect to football matters from that of other non-independent territories or “disputed territories” which FIFA admitted under the 1996 FIFA Statutes; and (c) FIFA’s interest in refusing membership to the GFA overrides GFA’s interest in becoming a member. FIFA never invoked this ground before (see supra at 172); raising it now violates the principle of good faith.

• The balance of interest actually weighs in favour of GFA because: (i) there is no objective reason for discriminating against GFA; (ii) the “consequences are significant for [GFA’s] Players, Clubs, Referees and fans – they are denied any meaningful access to international competitions organised by FIFA, the substantial economic ’related services which accompany such competitions, the significant training and development investment which FIFA provides to its members, and the administrative resources (such as the TMS) which provide assistance and protection for the GFA’s members”; (iii) the denial of access is substantial, since, unlike in the GOC v. IOC case, here Gibraltarians cannot play for the UK; and (iv) there is no proven danger that accepting the GFA as a FIFA member will lead to any conflict.

• The Respondent’s reliance on GOC v. IOC to support the proposition that FIFA has an overriding interest (see infra at para. 221) is unavailing because: (i) in that case the amendment to the Olympic Charter arose against the backdrop of a long debate as to the criteria for recognition of National Olympic Committees, which started in the 1980s, before GOC even filed its request for recognition, whereas in the present case the FIFA Statutes followed UEFA’s amendments to its Statutes, which the CAS held to be motivated by a desire to prevent the GFA from obtaining membership to UEFA; (ii) of the reasons mentioned supra at para. 176; and (iii) the language indicating that IOC had an overriding interest in “avoiding proliferation of NOCs which exercise jurisdiction in territories that do not correspond to a state recognized by the International Community and the admission of which would be a source of conflicts with sovereign states on which such territories depend” refers to the UK and not the Kingdom of Spain, which is key considering that GOC

did not have the support of the UK, whereas in the present case the GFA does have the support of the FA. - In light of the above, the Respondent violated GFA’s personality rights and, in accordance with Article 28(a) CC, the Panel has the authority to compel FIFA to enter into a membership relationship with GFA in order to ensure that FIFA ceases to infringe those personality rights.

180. Second, FIFA has violated the principle of good faith contained in Art. 2 CC because:

• A legal relationship of a contractual nature between the Parties was created at the moment of the filing of an application in conformity with the relevant terms and conditions. The terms of that pre-admission contract must be interpreted in good faith. As a consequence, FIFA cannot apply the 1996 FIFA Statutes in a manner contrary to its treatment of other applicants, or contrary to GFA’s legitimate expectation as FIFA spent two years assessing the application before transferring the file to UEFA for admission to the latter.

• As declared in the third GFA-UEFA CAS Award, FIFA’s discretion when considering the admission of new members cannot be exercised arbitrarily. Good faith requires justified and objective reasons for refusing to admit an applicant who fulfils the criteria for membership. FIFA has failed to identify any such objective or justified reasons and has thus violated the principle of good faith: (i) at the time of GFA’s application and during the whole “preliminary procedure” (before FIFA transferred the file to UEFA), FIFA did not raise any issue as to GFA’s compliance with the criteria for membership; (ii) FIFA actively and without any objection participated in the second phase of the procedure (UEFA’s evaluation of GFA for a period of two years), notably by partaking in the joint FIFA/UEFA visit to GFA; (iii) FIFA’s reason that GFA is a “unique case” and “disputed territory” is misconceived for the reasons alluded to supra at para. 172 et seq.; (iv) FIFA cannot exclude an applicant who satisfies the rules that FIFA publishes; (v) it is arbitrary and discriminatory to introduce a rule principally in order to defeat an existing application (of course, FIFA is not barred from amending its Statutes; but applicants whose applications are pending and who proceed on the basis of guidance from the relevant association, would legitimately expect for its application to be assessed pursuant to the membership criteria applicable at the time said application is submitted and not future criteria unilaterally imposed by the association); (vi) applying such a rule change under pressure of the RFEF and/or the Kingdom of Spain for political reasons unrelated to football contravenes Article 3 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes; and (vii) it is arbitrary and discriminatory to delay (or instigate to delay) and freeze GFA’s application for FIFA membership while continuing, during the same period, to process the applications of comparable applicants.

181. Third, FIFA has violated Article 7 the Swiss Cartel Act in the following ways: - FIFA holds a dominant position in the worldwide organization of football; by refusing membership to GFA on discriminatory grounds and without justification, it has prevented GFA’s participation in violation of Article 7 of the Swiss Cartel Act.

• FIFA’s refusal to accept the GFA’s application for FIFA membership has a relevant effect on competition, as (i) an association that has its seat in Switzerland and is governed by Swiss law, like FIFA, may have an “effect” in Switzerland within the meaning of Article 2, para. 2 of the Swiss Cartel Act, notably the deprivation of the possibility to take part in the corporate life of the Swiss association; (ii) if the Swiss Cartel Act does not apply, it would be difficult to identify a national legislation prohibiting cartels which could ever apply geographically; and (iii) FIFA competitions take place throughout the whole world, including in Switzerland, its organization is managed from Switzerland, and although the Swiss market may be only a small part of FIFA’s global market, in any event “the intensity of the effects occurring in Switzerland is not a condition for application of the Swiss Cartel Act”.

• FIFA is an undertaking that holds a dominant position in the relevant market and thus is subject to the Swiss Cartel Act. It is safe to assume that FIFA is an “undertaking” if one considers that UEFA has been characterized as such by both Swiss courts and the CAS. Further, FIFA is the leading organization in the world of football and enjoys a monopolistic position in that market; its decisions have a pronounced economic and practical consequences.

• FIFA has abused its dominant position in the relevant market. FIFA’s unjustified refusal to accept the GFA as a member, thereby preventing the GFA from accessing the global football market and to take part in world football competitions as well as in the relevant decision-making process within the world governing body, qualifies as “abusive” under the Swiss Cartel Act.

• As remedy, under Articles 12 and 13(b) of the Swiss Cartel Act a person impeded by unlawful restraint from entering or competing in a market is entitled to request (and the judge entitled to order) that the person responsible for that hindrance be obligated to contract. Accordingly, GFA is entitled to ask the Panel to remove the alleged hindrance by obligating FIFA to grant it FIFA membership.

182. Finally, “in application of Articles 28a of the Swiss Civil Code and of 13(b) of the Cartel Act, a judge is not only entitled to make a declaratory order that a breach of law is illegal, or to prohibit certain acts, but he also has the power directly to correct or eliminate a pending breach. A judge may even issue, in the dispositive of the judgment, such declarations in the name of the liable party as are necessary to establish or redress the legal situation subject, however, to the respective submissions of the party requesting such an order (citation omitted). As noted by the [Third GFA-UEFA CAS Award], ’the Judge may stand in the shoes of an association and declare a person to be a member of an association and oblige the association to do all necessary to allow the applicant to exercise its membership rights (citation omitted)… GFA fulfils all the requisite conditions to be a member of FIFA and given the long-standing history of its file, does not wish to take any risk again that might see the delay made any longer. As a result, the GFA respectfully seeks an award from the CAS… a self executory declaration that the GFA is immediately member of FIFA and enjoys with all rights and obligations attached to the status of FIFA member with immediate effect”.

H. FIFA has violated general principles of law

183. Furthermore, FIFA’s actions have infringed its obligations under the general principles of law either inherent in the administration of sport or derived from Swiss law, EU law and the ECHR, specifically the principles of:

• good faith: For the same reasons alluded to in para. 180 and because it required FIFA to “act consistently with the basis of its proposed processing of the 1997 application which was communicated to the GFA’s official”.

• fairness: because FIFA failed to act in a procedurally fair manner, meaning that it failed to (i) provide GFA an adequate opportunity to put its case and to be present when its application was being discussed by FIFA with third parties and (ii) deal with GFA’s 1997 application in a timely fashion. If GFA’s application had been dealt with in a normal way, it would have obtained FIFA membership prior to the amendment of the FIFA membership criteria in 2004. In this connection, FIFA can find no excuse in UEFA’s unlawful conduct.

• equal treatment: FIFA treated the GFA application differently than the applications of other comparable associations without providing any objectively justifiable distinction between them.

• proportionality: FIFA acted disproportionately, i.e. its refusal to grant GFA membership in the face of established practice did not pursue a legitimate and identified aim.

• certainty, acquired rights, and legitimate expectation: FIFA changed its rules for no other reason than to neutralize a right that GFA had already acquired by submitting its application in 1997 in compliance with and in satisfaction of the 1996 FIFA Statutes. GFA acquired a legitimate right and expectation that FIFA would deal with its application in accordance with the 1996 FIFA Statutes.

• protection of fundamental rights: GFA’s right to property was contravened by FIFA’s amending its membership criteria in a way that would create additional new requirements. The Appellant insists that the protection of fundamental rights under the ECHR apply to FIFA even though it is not a state authority because it exercises quasipublic functions by acting as a private regulatory agency.

184. With regard to Respondent’s contention that there is no material difference between Swiss law and the general principles of law, the Appellant asserts that “the general principles derived from the practice and principles of good administration of Sports authorities, as well as a growing body of legal authorities, are sensitive to the sporting context. As such, the analysis of FIFA’s conduct must be seen from the perspective of the exclusive position it occupies at the apex of world football, and as the sole gatekeeper of access to international; (i.e. non-regional) football competitions at national and club level”. FIFA cannot maintain that principles such as the duty of fairness, equal treatment and proportionality do not apply to non-members.

I. FIFA has violated EU competition law and EU freedom of movement law

185. FIFA has violated EU competition law as follows: (i) Article 101(1) TFEU: FIFA’s refusal to deal with GFA constitutes a restrictive decision of an association of undertakings. In essence, FIFA’s membership rules and their application, as exemplified by the manner in which FIFA sought to use them with respect to GFA’s FIFA membership application, are neither objective, nor sufficiently determinate, nor capable of uniform, non-discriminatory application and, therefore, contravene EU case law. (ii) Article 102 TFEU: FIFA is an undertaking which abused its dominant position as the de facto monopoly regulator of worldwide football by (i) imposing upon GFA’s membership application conditions dissimilar to those applied, during the same period, to applications of other associations from comparable territories, and (ii) engaging in conduct that restricted the growth and expansion of GFA’s activities and generally of football in Gibraltar to the direct detriment of all the consumers of this sport in Gibraltar. As to the relevant market for purposes of Article 102 TFEU, FIFA does not operate in the same market as UEFA. For one, FIFA does not operate in a market which provides sporting events for clubs throughout the course of the year and on a regular basis, as does UEFA (e.g. the UEFA Champions League); instead FIFA’s competitions, which are most notably the FIFA World Cup and FIFA Club World Cup “take place according to a different cycle, and yet are incredibly lucrative and soughtafter content, which broadcasters bid for separately, according to the terms of the organising committee”. Therefore, FIFA must be considered a “de facto monopoly regulator of cross-border football across the globe, and organiser of cross-border football events including the World Cup”.

186. FIFA’s exclusionary actions were disproportionate and discriminatory. Its treatment of Gibraltar as an alleged “unique case” or “disputed territory”, provided no justification for its anti-competitive behaviour.

187. FIFA breached the EU rules on free movement (i.e. Articles 45 (freedom of workers), 49 (freedom of establishment) and 56 (freedom to provide services) of the TFEU).

188. In light of the above, GFA’s Appeal Brief seeks the following relief: “280.1. A Declaration that the GFA’s application for membership must be considered and decided by FIFA on the basis of the criteria for admission applicable when the application was made on 8 January 1997, namely that the applicant association controls association football in its “country” as that word was then applied and interpreted by FIFA under Article 1 of the 1996 Statutes, as opposed to as it has subsequently been defined by amendment as “an independent state recognised by the international community” under Article 10 read together with definition six of the definitions section of the 2014 FIFA Statutes. 280.2. A Declaration that the GFA does satisfy those criteria for admission applicable when the application was made on 8 January 1997. 280.3. A Declaration that the FIFA Executive Committee is obliged to submit, and an Order that the FIFA Executive Committee do submit, the GFA’s application to the next FIFA Congress.

280.4. A Declaration that the FIFA Executive Committee is obliged so to submit, and an Order that the FIFA Executive Committee do so submit, the GFA’s application together with a request and/or recommendation that it be accepted by the FIFA Congress. 280.5. An Order that FIFA and/or the FIFA Executive Committee and/or the FIFA Congress and/or any other competent or relevant FIFA organ and/or each individual Member of FIFA do admit the GFA to full membership of FIFA without delay and/or in any event by the latest the next meeting of the FIFA Congress and/or in any event by a date to be specified by CAS. 280.6. An Order that the GFA is immediately a full member of FIFA, and as such FIFA and/or the FIFA Executive Committee and/or the FIFA Congress and/or any other competent or relevant FIFA organ and/or each individual Member of FIFA do treat the GFA in accordance with the FIFA Statutes and Regulations and other rules and in the same way as any other Member and without any discrimination. In particular, but without prejudice to the generality of the above, the GFA shall be immediately eligible and entitled and allowed by FIFA to participate in all such events, championships and competitions as other full Members in the equivalent position to the GFA, and shall be eligible and entitled to, and shall be paid by FIFA, all financial payments that other full Members in the equivalent position to the GFA receive. 280.7. An Order that the question of any Damages in respect of the loss and damage sustained by the GFA by reason of FIFA’s wrongful failure to admit it to membership be reserved. 280.8. An Order that FIFA pay all costs of the arbitration as well as legal costs incurred by the GFA”.

189. Reacting to the Respondent’s objections as to the admissibility of the Appellant’s requests for the relief, the Appellant’s Reply makes clear that its primary request for relief is that set out in paras. 280.6, 280.7 and 280.8 of the Appeal Brief (respectively, a self-executory Declaration that the GFA is a member of FIFA with immediate effect, a reservation of the question of damages, and costs and legal expenses). Specifically concerning its request to reserve the question of damages, the Respondent points out that it is not inconsistent with Article R56 of the CAS Code as “[t]o date, the GFA has no choice but to reserve its rights at this stage because the question on damages is dependent on the main question of membership and difficult to address within the constraint of the deadlines of the present Appeal proceedings, especially where an applicant (by contrast to a member) has limited access to relevant financial information”. The Appellant also clarifies that, secondarily, it requests the substantive relief set out in paras. 280.1 to 280.5 of the Appeal Brief. It explains that it takes this approach ex abundanti cautela in light of its previous experience with the UEFA CAS arbitrations, where UEFA sidestepped awarding membership to the GFA by engaging in a serious of procedural devices premised on the form of the relief that could be sought at each stage. The Appellant concludes that, in order to avoid any doubt, the Panel should read its requests for relief as follows: “As primary relief: (1) A self-executory Declaration that the GFA is awarded membership of FIFA with immediate effect (§280.6...); (2) An order that the question of Damages in respect of the loss and damage sustained by the GFA by reason of FIFA’s wrongful failure to admit it to membership be reserved;

(3) An Order that FIFA pay all costs of the arbitration as well as legal costs incurred by the GFA. As Subsidiary Relief: (1) FIFA is ordered to grant the GFA membership, i.e. FIFA shall take all necessary actions (§§280.1 to 280.5) to admit the GFA to membership of FIFA without delay; (2) An Order that the question of any Damages in respect of the loss and damage sustained by the GFA by reason of FIFA’s wrongful failure to admit it to membership be reserved; (3) An Order that FIFA pay all costs of the arbitration as well as legal costs incurred by the GFA”.

190. The Appellant’s post-hearing brief refers to the requests for relief in the Appel Brief.

VII.2 THE RESPONDENT: FIFA

191. According to FIFA, the Appealed Decision was correct inasmuch as the FIFA Executive Committee (i) applied the 2014 version of the FIFA Statutes in force at the time when it issued the Appealed Decision, and (ii) decided not to forward the application to the FIFA Congress on the basis that GFA did not satisfy the requirement of Article 10, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes, under which applicants for membership must be responsible for organizing and supervising football “in an independent state recognised by the international community”.

192. With regard to the principal issues, the Respondent’s contentions are as follows:

A. CAS lacks jurisdiction to hear the present appeal

193. Under Article 67, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes (i) GFA cannot assert any right provided by the 2014 FIFA Statutes until it becomes a member of FIFA, and (ii) said Article 67, para. 1 cannot be read alone, but must be read in connection with Article 66 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes, which does not include non-member applicants as parties entitled to appeal FIFA matters to CAS.

194. In its Answer, the Respondent specifies that CAS jurisdiction could in principle be based on the Appellant’s acceptance of the offer to arbitrate set forth by Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Regulations, but only to the extent that the present arbitration does not concern the application filed by the GFA in 1997. In fact, that application does not constitute an application within the meaning of the 2013 Admission Regulations, and thus falls outside the scope of the offer to arbitrate contained therein. The only reason the Appellant initially ignored this arbitration agreement and relied, instead, on Article 67, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes was that the Appellant recognized that acceptance of the arbitration offer under the 2013 Admission Regulations would confirm that its submission of 19 September 2013 constituted a new application (and not a resumption of the 1997 application) and would, therefore, be subject to the membership criteria established in 2004 FIFA Statutes, which the Appellant knew it could not satisfy. In other words, the reason for the Appellant’s jurisdictional strategy was its awareness that Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Regulations only covers disputes regarding applications filed under those very Regulations.

195. As for the Appellant’s claim that GFA accepted the offer to arbitrate on 21 February 2014 only with the previous reservation that the substantive rules applicable to its application would remain those in the 1996 FIFA Statutes, this is an issue that is intertwined with the merits, since the Appellant’s reliance on the arbitration agreement made on the basis of Article 3(1)(s) confirms that the application of 19 September 2013 is a new one (not a resumption of the 1997 application) which is, therefore, subject to the version of the FIFA Statutes applicable in 2013. The Appellant did not accept the offer to arbitrate of Article 3(1)(s) of the Admission Regulations, but rather made a “counter-offer” by way of its letter of 15 November 2013 which Respondent did not accept. ATF 129 III 675 made clear that “as a matter of principle, arbitration agreements are interpreted according to the general rules on the interpretation of contracts (Article 18(1) CO). However, a restrictive approach shall be observed when the formation, conclusion, or existence of an arbitration agreement is disputed, since the existence of such an agreement cannot be admitted lightly as it would entail inter alia a waiver of the constitutional right of access to courts and limited remedies against the award”.

196. In the alternative, if the Panel were to conclude that the Parties entered into an arbitration agreement based on Article 3(1)(s), the scope of the arbitration clause does not in any event encompass the dispute arising from the 1997 application, as it should be interpreted (a) by reference to the wording of the second part of Article 3(1)(s) of the Admission Regulations which use the phrase “regarding the application procedure”, and (b) in light of the fact that “application” in the Admission Regulations consistently refers to Article 10, para. 1 and 10, para. 2 of the FIFA Statutes but not to the 1996 FIFA Statutes. Article 3(1)(a) indeed provides in the relevant part that “the Application for admission…must contain… documents that show that the applicant represents a country in accordance with article 10 of the Statutes” (emphasis added). In other words, the scope of arbitration is limited to new applications subject to the substantive rules of the 2014 FIFA Statutes.

197. In sum, CAS has jurisdiction only if the Panel agrees that the relevant application for the present appeal is the new one filed in 2013 in accordance with Article 3(1)(s) of the 2013 Admission Regulations, in which case the offer to arbitrate is deemed to be accepted.

B. Swiss law is applicable; EU law is not; general principles of law are only residually

applicable

198. Swiss law is certainly applicable to the present dispute; however, EU law is not applicable on the basis of Article 19 PILA.

199. As for the general principles of law or lex ludica/lex sportiva, the Respondent “does not contest the existence of general principles of law that can be applied in sports disputes without having to determine (or even irrespective of) the national law applicable to the merits”. That said, even if such principles are accepted, CAS is not necessarily free to disregard Swiss (substantive) law. In fact, “in proceedings like the present one that are expressly governed by Swiss [law] it is only when the Panel has objective reasons to conclude that the application of Swiss law is not appropriate that it can apply another rule of law, including general principles of law”.

C. FIFA membership is not necessary for GFA and Gibraltarian footballers to participate

in international football

200. GFA may obtain access to international football if it secures affiliation with one of the four British Associations, such as the FA. GFA has already been affiliated in the past with the FA, as demonstrated by: (i) GFA’s 1991 application for FIFA membership in which GFA noted that it had been “for many years … affiliated to the [FA]” and (ii) GFA’s Statutes, as attached to its 1997 application, which state that “The GFA shall take such action as the Council may from time to time deem necessary to become affiliated and remain affiliated to the Football Association of England and Wales and/or to become a member of FIFA and/or any other international governing body or association”. GFA’s explanation that in that context “affiliated” only meant a “cooperation relationship” should be rejected. Three “County Football Associations” may be cited as examples of other football associations that currently participate in international football through the FA: the Jersey Football Association, the Guernsey Football Association, and the Isle of Man Football Association. GFA has failed to prove that it is not affiliated to the FA, or that it can no longer be so affiliated, or that it took all possible measures so to be affiliated; instead, it is evident that GFA simply prefers FIFA memberships over FA affiliation. GFA could rely on the contents of FIFA’s post-hearing brief to regain FA membership or to become a member of another British Association; it can “count on FIFA’s support” in confirming this “in the event that the FA (or any other British Association) should oppose a request for affiliation”.

201. No rule in the FIFA regulations prevents Gibraltarian footballers from competing internationally at the FIFA level. Gibraltarian footballers, even those competing for the GFA in UEFA competitions, can play for the FA. Once again, FIFA offers its support in confirming this to the British Associations. The cases of Matt le Tissier (Guernsey) and Graeme le Saux (Jersey) as examples of players from County Football Associations who have played for the England national team.

202. The opportunity for GFA and for Gibraltarian footballers to participate in international football by affiliating with one of the four British Associations (irrespective of direct affiliation with FIFA) is fatal for the Appellant’s appeal since all of the legal grounds on which it relies, i.e. personality rights, competition law (Swiss or EU), and the general principles of law, are based on the assumption that the GFA and Gibraltarians footballers cannot access international football without becoming members of FIFA.

D. The amendment to the FIFA Statutes in 2004 resulted from FIFA’s wish to align its

membership criteria with those of the Olympic Charter

203. FIFA changed the membership criteria in 2004 in order to align them with the Olympic Charter, as evidenced in the Minutes of the Extraordinary FIFA Congress in Doha in 2003, where that amendment was approved (see supra at para. 61 et seq.). The Appellant’s suggestion that FIFA made said amendment in reaction to the first GFA-UEFA CAS Award is wrong; as the relevant Minutes indicate, the extraordinary FIFA Congress in Doha occurred on 19 October 2003, i.e. three days prior to the date of issuance of the first GFA-UEFA CAS Award (22 October 2003). Nor did political pressure applied by the RFEF and Spain drive the amendment. The letters of September 2000 and 2001 from the RFEF to FIFA merely disclose

the RFEF’s displeasure with UEFA’s consideration of GFA’s application and do not contain any inference that the amendment at the Doha Congress (two years later) resulted from the RFEF’s intervention and from the aim of preventing GFA accession to FIFA membership.

E. The Panel cannot draw any adverse inference from the alleged lack of evidence

204. The Respondent has put considerable effort into and has produced all the documents that the Panel has ordered it to, i.e., it has not displayed any lack of transparency. The Panel cannot draw any inferences (reserved as an ultima ratio measure) against the Respondent.

F. GFA’s relevant application for FIFA membership is the one filed on 19 September 2013

205. The Appellant’s attempt to qualify its 2013 application for membership as a “revival” and “resumption” of its 1997 application (in order to apply the membership criteria of the 1996 FIFA Statutes) is misconceived since GFA’s 1997 application actually terminated on 26 February 1997 when it failed to challenge the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision in accordance with Article 75 CC. More particularly:

• The Appellant should have filed, in accordance with (the mandatory) Article 75 CC, an action before the local courts of Nyon within one month from the decision of the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision (i.e. by 26 February 2007) but failed to do so, which resulted in that Decision becoming final and, in turn, the lapsing of GFA’s 1997 application.

• Instead of seizing the local Swiss courts in accordance with Article 75 CC, the Appellant filed an ordinary CAS arbitration on 6 March 2007, seeking full UEFA membership. Although this request for arbitration defined itself as an appeal arbitration under Article 62, para. 1 of the UEFA Statute, the 10-day limit of appeal to the CAS granted under Article 62 of the UEFA Statutes had already expired, thereby time-barring Appellant from taking such action.

• The third GFA-UEFA CAS Award, which granted the GFA FIFA membership, could in theory have cured the tardiness of GFA’s appeal in relation to UEFA, given that UEFA participated in that case as a party, “but this does not change the fact that for the purposes of the FIFA membership process and as a matter of Swiss law the 1997 Application was terminated in February 2007”.

• The time limit of Article 75 CC is not extended by the time it took for the Appellant to receive the reasons for the UEFA 2007 Congress Decision. The Appellant should have appealed within the time limit of Article 75 CC and then requested the UEFA Congress to produce the relevant minutes.

• It is doubtful that under Swiss law a request for membership could be considered as valid after more than 10 years, even where the delay was due to protracted litigation between the GFA and UEFA.

206. In sum, GFA’s submission of 19 September 2013 must be deemed to have been a new application, and not a revival and resumption of the 1997 application; it thus follows that the

FIFA Statutes in force in 2013 (already including the definition of the term “country” as “an independent state recognised by the international community”) would be applicable in any event.

G. The 2014 FIFA Statutes are applicable to the GFA’s application as a matter of contract

law

207. As indicated by the two expert reports submitted by Prof. Thomas Probst, even assuming that the relevant application for FIFA membership was the 1997 application (i.e., revived and resumed on 19 September 2013), the applicable criteria for membership should be those set out in the Statutes in force at the time when the decision on the application was made, i.e. the 2014 FIFA Statutes, because the present dispute concerns a matter of Swiss contract law, governed by Article 1 et seq. CO, and not the intertemporal rules on the modification of enacted laws (Articles 1-4 of the Final Title of the CC).

208. Under Swiss law, for a contract to be formed between FIFA and GFA there must be an exchange of an offer and acceptance with congruent terms. GFA’s application would thus constitute the offer, which FIFA could refuse or accept according to the version of the FIFA Statutes in force at the time of the acceptance/refusal. Since the FIFA Executive Committee held that GFA failed to fulfil the membership criteria and therefore did not refer the matter to the FIFA Congress, no contrat d’adhésion or other contractual relationship between the Parties came into being. Consequently, “GFA’s submission that it would have been entitled to ’freeze’ the text of the articles of association by submitting its application on 8 January 1997, which would have been somehow ’revived’ on 19 September 2013, contradicts not only common sense but also and more importantly the relevant principles of Swiss law”. FIFA must abide by its own Statutes and cannot grant membership to an applicant which does not fulfil the membership criteria provided for by the FIFA Statutes; it is bound to grant membership exclusively on the basis of the Statutes in force at the time it accepts the applicant’s offer for membership. Accordingly, irrespective of whether the relevant application of GFA is that of 1997 or 2013, the applicable Statutes are the 2014 FIFA Statutes, as they were the Statutes in force when FIFA rejected GFA’s application.

209. No contrat d’adhésion could have been concluded at the moment GFA filed its application for membership (this being the acceptance of an offer that FIFA allegedly made by publishing its Statutes), as this, as well as the theory of a pre-admission contractual relationships creating a right to obtain admission for the applicant, is unheard of in Swiss law. GFA’s position is incorrect as a matter of Swiss law inter alia because:

• No “pre-admission [contractual] relationship” or “right to obtain admission” has been established, given that the 1996 FIFA Statutes do not provide that an association fulfilling all conditions of Article 1 therein would be entitled to membership under Swiss law. In the absence of any rule or agreement (“accord de négociation” or “pré-/avant-contrat”) providing otherwise, it is presumed that the association retains complete freedom to refuse membership, even where the applicant satisfies all membership criteria.

• The FIFA Congress (to which the FIFA Executive Committee would have forwarded the application had the GFA satisfied the membership criteria of the 2014 FIFA Statutes) retains the freedom to refuse membership even where an association satisfies

all membership criteria, as is evident from Article 2 of the 2014 Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes, Article 1(o) of the 2013 Admission Regulations, Article 3 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes and Article 3 of the 1996 Regulations Governing the Application of the Statutes. Thus, GFA could not have had a “right of admission”.

• A “pre-admission [contractual] relationship” or “right to obtain admission” cannot exist before the conclusion of a contrat d’adhésion (before FIFA accepts the applicant’s offer for membership), without which there is no agreement of a bilateral nature or “right for membership” arising from the FIFA’s “offer for a right to membership”.

• As a matter of contract law, FIFA would be entitled unilaterally to change the criteria for membership as long as it has not yet accepted the applicant’s offer for membership.

• The fact that FIFA is the leading world football association, as compared to a gardening association, comes into play only when discussing “a hypothetical exception to the principle of the exchange of an offer and acceptance, in particular with respect to a possible obligation to contract”.

210. The Appellant’s belated introduction (in its Reply) of this “pre-admission [contractual] relationship” position puts into serious question the strength of that argument and is difficult to square with Article R56 of the CAS Code. The Respondent concludes that, in any case, if the Appellant’s position were accepted, then the “contractual” claim arising in 1997 would have become timebarred as a matter of Swiss law in 2007 based on Article 127 CO which provides a ten-year statute of limitation for contractual claiMs

H. The 2014 FIFA Statutes are applicable to the GFA’s application also by operation of

the intertemporal provision applicable to Swiss legislation

211. The Appellant initially (in its Appeal Brief) only relied on the intertemporal rules and the principles of administrative law (in particular the principle of non-retroactivity), but then resorted to heavier reliance on contract law. Intertemporal rules cannot apply, even by analogy, to the extent the Appellant puts its case as a matter of contract law: “[i]n certain circumstances, the analogy between the sport governing bodies and the public administration might be relevant when discussing the rights and obligations of a member (based on association law) but certainly not when discussing the application of a non-member to become a member (based on contract law)”. Inasmuch as GFA’s application for membership is a matter of private contract law, it is governed by the offer and acceptance principles of Article 1 et seq. CO and, thus, intertemporal rules that govern statutory law, i.e. Articles 1-4 Final Title CC and Swiss administrative law, are irrelevant. An association such as FIFA “cannot be expected to grant membership to a new member on the basis of former articles of association, which are no longer legally binding and existent. Such decision would constitute a violation of the articles of association in force at the time when such decision is issued. When applied to the present matter, these principles mean that the GFA’s application for FIFA membership constitutes an offer, whose acceptance/rejection by FIFA is governed by the FIFA Statutes in force at the time when [the] FIFA Executive Committee took its decision, i.e. the 2014 FIFA Statutes”.

212. Even if the intertemporal rules applicable to Swiss legislation apply by analogy and even if the 1997 application is considered the relevant application, a proper interpretation of said rules would still lead to the application of the rules in force at the time that FIFA decided to reject the GFA’s application, i.e. the 2014 FIFA Statutes: “in accordance with the principle of nonretroactivity, Article 1(1) and (2) Final Title CC would provide that the legal effects of facts having occurred under the previous legal provisions continue to be governed by these provisions after the new law has come into force. Conversely, facts occurring under the new provisions would be governed by the new law, unless that new law provides otherwise (Article 1(3) Final Title CC). As the 2014 Statutes do not provide that they will not [be] applied to application[s] for membership submitted prior to their entry into force, the GFA’s offer of 8 January 1997 made under the FIFA Statutes 1996 would not cease to exist under the [2014] FIFA Statutes, but FIFA’s refusal or acceptance of that offer would inevitably be governed by the [2014] FIFA Statutes… [This position] is further confirmed by Article 4 Final Title CC, which states that non-vested rights under the previous law are subject to the new law as soon as the new provisions have entered into force. The mere fact of making an application/offer for FIFA membership under the previous ’law’ (i.e. the 1996 FIFA [Statutes]) does not confer any vested right upon the offeror as to the possible conclusion of an admission contract since it requires the acceptance of that application/offer by FIFA… Finally,… the GFA cannot rely on the delay in the processing of its 1997 [a]pplication… [as] there is no evidence that FIFA ’instigated or assisted in UEFA’s delay’ and used such delay ’to instigate the change of its own rule’… [T]he change of the FIFA rules was not meant to prevent GFA’s application but rather to adopt the requirement for affiliation newly provided for by the Olympic Charter”.

213. The fact that the FIFA Statutes do not contain explicit provisions on the intertemporal factsituations is not an oversight. No such provision is needed since each fact is deemed to be governed by the Statutes in force at the time when it occurs, meaning that the application for membership (i.e. the offer) is governed by the Statutes in force at the time when the application is made, whereas the acceptance or rejection thereof is governed by the Statutes in force at the time of said acceptance or rejection.

214. Unlike in a disciplinary setting where the public administration analogy makes sense, i.e. an association must apply the substantive rules in force at the time when the facts (the disciplinary offense) occurred, the same is not true for the situation where an association applies for membership. This is why the Appellant has resorted to the theory that a pre-admission contractual relationship arose at the moment the GFA filed its application for membership, but this has no basis under Swiss law.

215. Swiss courts have rejected the application of intertemporal rules in disputes like the present one: “According to the Swiss Courts in the GOC v. IOC case, it is doubtful that administrative law can apply, even by analogy, to such contractual settings where an applicant applies for membership to a Swiss association. Even though the principle of freedom of contract can be restricted in specific instances in case of a dominant position and may justify the application of general principles of law, this cannot lead to the application of the whole administrative law. The Swiss courts found that there is no reason to deviate from the principle that the statutes in force at the time of the decision to accept or to refuse the offer to contract (i.e. the application) should apply”.

I. GFA fails to satisfy the membership criteria set in the 2014 FIFA Statutes

216. It is undisputed that GFA does not meet the membership criteria of the current FIFA Statutes (criteria that have been in force since 2004) since GFA governs football in a territory that does not satisfy the concept of “country” as “an independent state recognized by the international community”.

J. GFA fails to satisfy the membership criteria set in the 1996 FIFA Statutes

217. Even if the relevant version of the Statutes were the 1996 FIFA Statutes, GFA fails to satisfy the membership criteria therein:

• “[I]t is doubtful that the rules of interpretation that have been developed for the legal relationship between an association and its members or indirect members, also apply to a non-member”.

• It is not self-evident that FIFA must interpret the term “country” in the GFA’s case as it did in other allegedly identical cases, given that it is difficult to square with the principle of pas d’égalité dans l’illégalité.

• The FIFA Executive Committee as well as CAS have “a great deal of discretion in the application” of the term “country”, since it is left undefined in the 1996 Statutes, and should interpret it taking into account the definition introduced in the FIFA Statutes as from 2004. If FIFA had intended to change the substance of the FIFA requirement in 2004, it would not have defined the term “country” but rather replaced it with the expression “independent state recognized by the international community”. In other words, in 2004 FIFA simply codified the antecedent meaning of the term “country”. Such an interpretation is consistent with Article 1, para. 3 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes which provide that “only one association shall be recognized in each country”. The term should therefore be considered as remaining unchanged in 2004.

• The present situation is not comparable with the one of the GFA v. UEFA arbitration proceedings, in which UEFA changed the term “territory” to “country”.

• The GOC v. IOC case decided by the Swiss Federal Tribunal supports the proposition that even if the 1996 FIFA Statutes apply to GFA’s case, the deciding body (here the FIFA Executive Committee or the CAS) would be entitled to take into account the post-2004 version of the FIFA Statutes because the new regulation codified or materialized the discretionary power of the deciding body. That case is relevant and applicable, considering its similarities with the present dispute: (i) the Olympic Charter also used the concept of “country” which it later defined as an “independent state recognised by the international community”; (ii) the new definition was adopted after the GOC applied for membership but had entered into force as of that application’s rejection; (iii) the IOC had the discretion to accept or reject the application as does FIFA under Article 10 and Article 1 of the 2014 and 1996 FIFA Statutes, respectively. The alleged distinctions raised by the Appellant between the GOC v. IOC case and the present dispute are incorrect: (i) the British Olympic Association (BOA) did not oppose the GOC’s application to the IOC; (ii) the issue of how long the IOC discussed changes to the Olympic Charter and the GOC’s awareness of this was only considered in connection with whether the IOC had created legitimate expectations on which the GOC could rely, and not in connection with the interpretation of membership requirement; (iii) Gibraltarians have access to the Olympics through the BOA like they would have access to international football through whichever British Association with which the GFA might affiliate; (iv) other territories admitted into FIFA were admitted under Article 10, para. 6 of the FIFA Statutes.

• Consistently with this interpretation, GFA fails to satisfy Article 1, para. 2 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes since Gibraltar it is not a “country” in the sense of an independent state recognised by the international community. This is corroborated by the fact that FIFA had previously rejected the GFA’s 1991 membership application on the basis that Gibraltar “has virtually no autonomy and has not been recognized as autonomous by any existing public legal body” and that due to “the extremely special nature [of its] territory’s geographical and political position, accepting its independence on sporting grounds would set important precedents for [FIFA’s] organisation that would be contrary to the consistent policy of FIFA in such matters”, a finding that GFA did not challenge during the six years that passed before it sought membership anew.

• Admittedly, the Panel could theoretically be limited when interpreting the term “country” if the Appellant could establish that FIFA has consistently interpreted the term as referring also to non-independent states; however, FIFA has not done so inter alia because the associations the Appellant lists as comparable with the GFA are not so for the following reasons: (i) the four British Associations’ memberships have a century-old historic sporting background; (ii) the various associations of the British Overseas Territories (such as Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks & Caicos Islands) and the associations of other territories (e.g. American Samoa, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Bahamas, Brunei Darussalam, Cook Islands, Curacao, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Guam, Hong Kong, Macau, New Caledonia, Puerto Rico, Suriname, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) were admitted on the basis of Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes (the equivalent of Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes) and are not “disputed territories”; and (iii) the associations of other politically sensitive territories are not comparable since Chinese Taipei, East Timor and South Sudan were admitted as football associations pertaining to independent states (all were UN members at the time FIFA granted them membership), while Palestine was admitted on the basis of Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes, it being understood that FIFA exercised its discretion taking into account the agreement of all members including the Israeli Federation, which supported the membership. As for Zanzibar and Northern Mariana Islands, while their associations were not members of their respective confederations, the main reason for FIFA’s rejection of their applications for membership was that they are not independent states recognized by the international community.

• Placing the burden on FIFA of proving that it accepted the aforementioned associations under the exceptional provision of the FIFA Statutes is inconsistent with Article 8 CC, especially given the context: (i) the Parties agree the territories in question were not independent; and (ii) there is no indication that they were admitted as FIFA members on the ground that they were considered “countries” under the 1996 Statutes.

• In any event, according to Article 4, para. 2 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes, in order to qualify for FIFA membership, an applicant must first be a UEFA provisional member

of at least two years’ standing, and since UEFA did not grant it UEFA provisional membership until December 2006, GFA never fulfilled the requirements for membership while the 1996 FIFA Statutes were still in force. - Finally, GFA cannot rely on the exception defined in Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes (or its equivalent Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes); nor, in any event, does it satisfy it. First of all, GFA’s application, whether it be the 1997 or the 2013 version, did not request admission based on the exception provision; consequently, it cannot now rely on that discretionary provision in this arbitration to remedy the fact that it falls short of complying with Article 1, para. 2 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes or Article 10, para. 1 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes. Second, assuming equal treatment applies to non-members seeking discretionary admission, the reason FIFA admitted other territories as FIFA members based on said provisions, whereas it did not do the same with GFA, is that the other territories were not disputed and their applications were not opposed by other FIFA members.

K. GFA has failed to establish that FIFA is under an obligation to accept its membership under Swiss law

218. The Appellant’s reliance on an obligation to contract in order to claim its entitlement to obtain FIFA membership (an argument developed in its Appeal Brief) conflicts with its argument that GFA already had a contractual right to admission at the moment of the filing of its application (an argument developed in its Reply).

219. Even if GFA met the membership criteria of the 1996 or 2014 FIFA Statutes, FIFA nonetheless retains full discretion in deciding to admit or reject an application for membership, even if all the requirements for membership (provided by the applicable statutes) are met. None of the legal provisions and general principles of Swiss law relied upon by the GFA, under the circumstances of the present case, limit said autonomy.

220. The freedom of contract and the liberty of association or Articles 19 CO and Article 63 CC, respectively, are “fundamental legal principles under Swiss law” and can only be restricted by “specific legal provision (‘base légale’)”. While FIFA’s freedom to accept or refuse an application for membership is not unlimited, none of the limitations the GFA identifies – the protection of personality rights (Article 28 CC), the obligation to act in good faith (Article 2 CC), and the protection against the abuse of dominant position under Swiss Cartel law – apply in the present case. Articles 28 CC and 7 of the Swiss Cartel Act provide for very strict conditions. Under Article 28 CC, an obligation to contract only arises under very specific circumstances, where personality rights are effectively infringed without any justified or legitimate grounds. For Article 7 of the Swiss Cartel Act, an obligation to contract only arises where an undertaking abuses its dominant position in the market, i.e., it impedes or restricts the access to competition without any justified or legitimate grounds.

221. With regard to personality rights (Article 28 CC): - The protection under Swiss law of personality rights might limit the autonomy of the concerned association in specific circumstances; accordingly, in the context of applications for membership, it might oblige FIFA to accept a member that fulfils all

the requirements for membership. However, FIFA’s power to exclude a prospective member at its own discretion (Article 72 CC) may be limited by an applicant’s personality rights to pursue economic activity only where the balance of interest of the prospective member prevails over the interest of FIFA to exclude such prospective member; this should only be held in exceptional circumstances. Moreover, considering that the prospective member in the present case is a national football organization, as opposed to an individual athlete, the requirements for an obligation to contract that may arise from the protection of personality rights are even more stringent.

• There is no violation of personality rights, let alone a violation serious enough to justify imposing on FIFA the obligation to enter into an admission contract with the GFA, as the GFA and Gibraltarian footballers already have access to European competitions through UEFA and non-admission does not frustrate GFA’s statutory purposes.

• The ground upon which the FIFA Executive Committee refused GFA’s application for FIFA membership is not discriminatory if the Panel agrees that GFA did not fulfil the criteria for membership. If such is the case, there cannot be an infringement of the GFA’s personality rights. But even in the contrary hypothesis, the FIFA Congress would be entitled to reject the GFA’s application without discriminating against GFA because the GFA application involved a unique situation.

• Even if there were a violation of personality rights, FIFA has an overriding and legitimate interest under Article 28, para. 2 CC in rejecting GFA’s membership application: its long-standing objective of maintaining political neutrality and avoiding disputes between its current members. FIFA seeks to avoid that an association governing football in a “country” that is not independent joins as a member when (i) the territory is disputed between two States and (ii) the members representing these States have not consented to the admission. The GOC v. IOC case (which is indistinguishable from the present case) ruled that the IOC “had an overriding interest, which must be taken into account, in avoiding the proliferation of NOCs which exercise jurisdiction in territories that do not correspond to a State recognized by the international community and the admission of which would be a source of conflicts with sovereign states on which such territories depend”. Denying FIFA’s legitimate interest would create or exacerbate a dispute between two current FIFA members (the FA and the RFEF) and the relevant sovereign states (the UK and Spain). Whether Spain’s claims are warranted as a matter of public international law is irrelevant to FIFA’s legitimate interest because the dispute exists as a matter of fact.

• The Appellant’s reliance on the Third GFA-UEFA CAS Award to claim that the “relevance of Spanish pretentions over Gibraltar has already been firmly discarded by CAS” is misplaced. That award examined the reason to justify a change of attitude by UEFA (not present in the FIFA case) as opposed to whether there were legitimate grounds to refuse admission per se under Article 28 CC.

• Further, GFA cannot escape the consequences of FIFA’s legitimate interest by claiming that FIFA has relied on Gibraltar’s status as a “disputed territory” artificially and in bad faith. That the FIFA Statutes do not refer to the concept of “disputed territory” is immaterial. Its only relevance is in connection with FIFA’s exercise of the discretion afforded to it under those Statutes and to explain why other dependent territories were

admitted under Article 1, para. 5 of the 1996 FIFA Statutes and Article 10, para. 6 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes. In fact, the FIFA Executive Committee does not mention this concept in the Appealed Decision, which was taken on the basis of Article 10, para. 1 of the FIFA Statutes, and not under the exception provision for dependent territories. - Finally, FIFA’s position is not at odds with the non-discrimination clause of Article 3 of the 2014 FIFA Statutes which has no pertinence to GFA’s application given its distinguishing features.

222. As to the obligation to act in good faith under Article 2 CC:

• Since GFA is not a FIFA member, FIFA cannot have committed any arbitrary or discriminatory acts between the GFA and other FIFA members.

• FIFA never made any promise to GFA or created any expectation (as UEFA did) that it would grant it FIFA membership. In fact, since 1991 GFA has known of the political difficulties related to its application.

• The decision to not grant GFA membership is not arbitrary given that FIFA has legitimate and objective grounds, e.g. the GFA’s unique status.

• The mere change of membership requirements does not constitute a violation of the duty to act in good faith as FIFA has the right to revise its statutes and, moreover, has a legitimate interest in not admitting disputed and sensitive territories. GFA has not shown any arbitrary or discriminatory actions against the GFA, i.e., there is no proof that the 2004 amendment to the FIFA Statutes did not emerge from the purpose of aligning them with the Olympic Charter. In any case, FIFA has not changed the requirements for membership at all since the 1996, 2004, and 2014 FIFA Statutes have all required, when interpreted properly, that a “country” be “an independent state recognised by the international community”.

• The obligation to act in good faith and the prohibition of abuse of right vis-à-vis a candidate member cannot create an obligation to contract, rather only a culpa in contrahendo, which would only give rise to reliance damages (“intérêt négatif”).

223. With respect to competition law under Article 7 of the Swiss Cartel Act:

• This Act does not apply here because FIFA’s refusal to accept GFA as a FIFA member does not have a relevant effect on competition in Switzerland. GFA failed to explain why being deprived of taking part in “corporate life” of FIFA (which only relates to “internal functions” of FIFA not affecting competition) would affect the Swiss market of goods and services.

• FIFA is not a dominant undertaking. For an entity to be considered as a dominant undertaking under Swiss law, it must be able to behave to an appreciable extent independently of other market participants in a determined market (Article 4, para. 2 of the Swiss Cartel Act). The notion of “market” is determined geographically (territorial area of commercial activity) and substantively (in light of specific goods and services offered and in view of their substitutability). The Appellant has failed to demonstrate the latter. The fact that FIFA’s refusal to grant GFA membership does not have any relevant effect on competition in Switzerland also means that FIFA cannot

have a “dominant position” under the Swiss Cartel Act. Therefore, FIFA is not a dominant undertaking. - FIFA’s behaviour in the market is not abusive, as it (i) does not impede or restrict competition or take advantage of a dominant position to the detriment of other competitors, and (ii) is justified by objective reasons for the alleged restraint on the market.

224. Finally, given that GFA and Gibraltarian football players may participate in international football once affiliated to one of the British Associations, there cannot be a violation of either Swiss personality rights or competition law.

L. The Appellant cannot seek the enforcement of the right to membership of FIFA

225. The Appellant is “not entitled to seek a self-executory declaration from CAS that the GFA is immediately a member of FIFA and enjoys all rights and obligations arising from the status of FIFA member with immediate effect” because GFA is not entitled to membership (it fails to satisfy the membership criteria of the 1996 or 2014 FIFA Statutes) and, in any case, “FIFA has the complete discretion to reject the application since the requirements of Article 28 CC and Article 7 [of the Swiss Cartel Act] are not fulfilled”.

M. The Respondent has not violated general principles of law

226. FIFA did not infringe the general principles of (i) good faith (for the same reasons given in connection to Article 2 CC), (ii) fairness (as, inter alia, FIFA does not “rely on UEFA’s unlawful conduct to justify its actions” nor do said actions extend to FIFA), (iii) equal treatment (as, inter alia, GFA is objectively unique and the principle applies only between a state and an individual, not between private entities), (iv) proportionality (for the same reasons tipping the balance of interest under Article 28, para. 2 CC in favour of FIFA, and in any event since the principle is of no relevance in the absence of any infringement of GFA’s personality right or any abuse of right), (iv) certainty, acquisition of rights and legitimate expectations (for the same reasons given in connection to Article 2 CC), and (v) protection of fundamental rights (as FIFA is not a state authority).

N. The Respondent has not violated EU law

227. The Respondent has not violated EU law; in particular, it has not violated:

• the EU rules on freedom of movement because the “GFA is not providing a pan-European service outside of Gibraltar and the provision of a team for international football matches falls outside the scope of a ’service’ given the specific characteristics of such matches”.

• EU competition law because: (i) the Appellant has failed to define the relevant market accurately and (ii), in any case, FIFA has not abused its alleged dominant position in the market (for the same reasons it gave in relation to Swiss competition law). The Respondent asserts that “FIFA’s decision does not infringe Competition law because it is inherent and proportionate to the legitimate objective of maintaining the pyramid structure of sports and,

specifically, protecting the governance of football. There is no support for the contention that the GFA has been treated in a discriminatory manner vis-à-vis any of the territories that it has listed. [Furthermore] even if the GFA is considered to meet the conditions of membership, FIFA still retains a wide margin of discretion as a matter of EU & Competition law to reject its application having regard to objective factors, such as the disputed and particular nature of Gibraltar, that could adversely affect the governance of football”.

O. The Appellant’s requests for relief are inadmissible

228. In its Answer, the Respondent contests the admissibility under Swiss law of the Appellant’s requests for relief in its Appeal Brief, including those specified in: (i) paras. 280.1 and 280.2 since they are declaratory and thus subsidiary in nature (the Respondent claims that the Appellant has no legal interest in such declarations in light of the relief sought in 280.3 and 280.4, provided those reliefs are not declaratory in nature); (ii) para. 280.3 since it is allegedly subsidiary to the “order” sought under the same paragraph and since said “order” allegedly goes beyond the Panel’s power under Article R57 of the CAS Code (the Appellant failed to seek the annulment of the Decision and a de novo award submitting the GFA’s application for membership to the FIFA Congress); (v) paras. 280.4, 5 and 6 as they allegedly go beyond the Appealed Decision; and (vi) para. 280.7 since it allegedly goes beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement concluded based on Article 3(1)(s) of the Admission Regulations.

229. In its Rejoinder, the Respondent contends that the Appellant’s amendment to the requests for relief in its Reply is inadmissible pursuant to Article R56 of the CAS Code. The Appellant’s relief sought is inadmissible as it goes beyond the Panel’s authority pursuant to Article R57 of the CAS Code and/or are merely declaratory in nature. The Panel does not have the authority to make any ruling with respect to a decision of the FIFA Congress, as this is an appeal from the decision of the FIFA Executive Committee not to forward the GFA’s case to the FIFA Congress; thus “all the present Panel can do is to (either remit the matter back to the FIFA Executive Committee or to) rule on a de novo basis in place of the FIFA Executive Committee (Article R57 of the CAS Code) that the GFA application (i) fulfils the membership requirement set out by the FIFA Statutes and (ii) the GFA’s application should be transmitted to the next FIFA Congress with a recommendation to accept the application”. Finally, the Respondent asserts that “the declaratory reliefs sought by the GFA are inadmissible since, as a matter of Swiss law, such reliefs are subsidiary in nature. The GFA has indeed no legal interest in such declaration when it could (and should) have sought a decision replacing the Decision under appeal”.

230. In light of the foregoing, the Respondent requests in its Answer a decision: “1. Declining jurisdiction to the extent that the GFA’s application for FIFA Membership that is relevant for the present arbitration is the application submitted on 8 January 1997. 2. Asserting jurisdiction only to the extent that the GFA’s application for FIFA-Membership that is relevant for the present arbitration is the application submitted on 19 September 2013. 3. Declaring all of the GFA’s requests for “substantive relief” inadmissible to the extent that the CAS has jurisdiction to hear the Appeal. 4. Dismissing all of the GFA’s requests for “substantive relief” to the extent that they are admissible and that the CAS has jurisdiction to hear the Appeal.

5. Confirming the Decision under appeal. 6. Condemning the GFA to pay all the costs of the present arbitration. 7. Condemning the GFA to pay FIFA a substantial compensation for the costs incurred by FIFA before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, including the attorney and legal experts’ fees, of an amount to be further specified but of at least CHF 100,000.00”.

231. In its Rejoinder, the Respondent requests in its requests for relief a decision: “1. Declining jurisdiction to hear the present appeal. 2. Confirming the Decision under appeal. 3. Condemning the GFA to pay all the costs of the present arbitration. 4. Condemning the GFA to pay FIFA a substantial compensation for the costs incurred by FIFA before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, including the attorney and legal experts’ fees, of an amount to be further specified but of at least CHF 100,000.00”.

232. In its post-hearing brief, the Respondent confirmed the motions for relief set forth in its Rejoinder.