Intangiblia™
Plain talk about Intellectual Property. Podcast of Intangible Law™
Intangiblia™
The IP Legal Playbook Behind Football's Billion-Dollar Empire
The beautiful game has transformed into something far more complex than 22 players chasing a ball. Today's football exists as a sophisticated intellectual property ecosystem worth billions, where legal battles off the pitch often carry stakes as high as championship finals.
From broadcasting rights that form the financial lifeblood of leagues worldwide to domain name disputes protecting women's tournaments, this episode takes you behind the scenes of football's invisible legal infrastructure. We explore landmark cases including Spain's €31.6 million judgment against streaming platform Roja Directa, the surprising $40 million award to the inventors of referee's vanishing spray, and Manchester United's curious lawsuit against Football Manager for using their name but not their logo.
The player perspective receives special attention through cases involving Messi, Neymar, and Ronaldo's fights to control their own names as valuable commercial assets. We also examine Project Red Card's groundbreaking challenge to the uncompensated commercialization of player performance data – potentially reshaping how personal statistics are treated across all sports.
Whether you're fascinated by sports business, intellectual property, or simply curious about the legal machinery powering the world's favorite sport, this episode delivers five essential takeaways that extend far beyond football. Discover why exclusivity isn't about ego but economics, how small innovations can yield massive legal victories, and why your name is only truly yours if you claim it through proper legal channels. Subscribe now and join our exploration of how IP shapes not just football, but entertainment, technology and culture worldwide.
Let's get something straight In 2025, football isn't just a sport. It's a multi-billion dollar IP ecosystem in cleats, and right now it's on fire. The FIFA Club World Cup is dazzling across the US, the UEFA Women's Euro is about to turn Swiss lakes into seas of supporters, and somewhere between kickoff and commentary there's a mess of lawsuits nobody talks about at halftime. So today we're taking you on a legal tour, a pitch side view into the power of broadcasting rights, the weight of a name like Messi, and why even a disappearing spray can reappear in court with a vengeance Game on.
Speaker 2:You are listening to Intangiblia, the podcast of Intangible Law, playing talk about intellectual property. Please welcome your host, Leticia Caminero.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Intangiblia, the podcast where intellectual property steps off the textbook page and on to the global stage. I'm Leticia Caminero, and joining me today is the AI with the strongest opinions per pixel Artemisa.
Speaker 1:And, like a midfielder who sees the whole field, I'm here to make bold passes across tech law and SaaS.
Speaker 3:This episode was co-created using generative AI tools refined by human insight, and, as always, it's not legal advice, but it might make you sound smarter at your next watch party. Imagine this you're sitting in a packed stadium, bloodlines buzzing, the ball is at the halfway line and none of it is on camera.
Speaker 1:Horrifying. What even is football without the replays?
Speaker 3:the commentary the 30 camera angle VAR drama. Exactly that's why broadcasting rights are the engine of modern football. They're not just contracts, they are the bloodstream. Leagues and federations license these rights to networks and platforms for billions. In return, those networks broadcast matches to global audiences, monetize with ads and open set their own regional sub-lessoning deals.
Speaker 1:They are protected by copyright and in many countries by specific broadcast reproduction rights, like in Kenya, the EU and the UK. Unauthorized use that's not fan enthusiasm, that's an infringement.
Speaker 3:So let's start in Spain. Roja Directa was the go-to index for pirated football streams. No subscription, no password, just pure digital chaos.
Speaker 1:They didn't host content, they just aggregated links like a football buffet. Take what you like, ignore the law.
Speaker 3:But the courts saw through that In 2015, meri Prado and Movistar Plus went after Roja Directa for facilitating access to On A For A streams. Facilitating access to on a for a streams by 2017, a court ruled that, even though they didn't host the content, the platform's structure encouraged and profited from infringement.
Speaker 1:They weren't spectators, they were the stadium. And in 2021, boom 31,600,000 euro, zero cents and damages.
Speaker 3:And it got personal. The Spanish Supreme Court confirmed that the platform's founder could be personally liable, not just the company. It sent a message to the entire digital world Hiding behind tech won't protect you from IP enforcement, especially when the world's most profitable sport is involved. Let's zoom in on a case that quietly but decisively reshaped how football is heard, not just seen, In 2024, Radio Africa LTVD, a major Kenyan media group, sued one of its competitors, the Standard Group, which owns Radio Maisha, for broadcasting live Premier League match commentaries without authorization. But here's the twist it was radio, not television. No video, just voices, scores and the roar of imaginary stadiums.
Speaker 1:And yet it was still a violation of exclusive broadcasting rights. That's what makes this case so important. It proved that in today's media landscape, copyright protection doesn't depend on what people see, but what rights are paid for.
Speaker 3:Radiography had secured exclusive audio rights for Kenya from the official Premier League licensee. That meant they paid, contracted, contracted and planned for this privilege. But when another station aired full match commentaries without permission, they weren't just stepping on competitive toes, they were violating a property right.
Speaker 1:The defense tried to argue that radio wasn't covered under Kenya's copyright framework or that commentary wasn't reproducing the broadcasts, but the high court wasn't buying it.
Speaker 3:The ruling was crystal clear Live audio broadcasts count under the Copyright Act. Football isn't just protected visually, it's also protected in sound, especially when someone else has paid for the exclusive rights.
Speaker 1:So the next time you tune into a match on the radio and hear that dramatic pause before a goal, just know someone's licensing team made that moment happen legally.
Speaker 3:It started with a line on the field and ended with a line in the budget. Back in 2001, two Brazilian inventors, jaime Almanier and Pablo Silva, created something deceptively simple a can of vanishing spray. It helped referees mark the line for free cakes. It evaporated in seconds. It was portable, cheap and effective.
Speaker 1:They patented it in Brazil, demonstrated it, promoted it, even licensed it to come a ball. And in 2014, FIFA picked it up. You probably remember it debuting at the World Cup in Brazil.
Speaker 3:But then silence. Fifa kept using the spray but stopped paying. The inventors claimed that after the initial agreement expired, fifa never renewed, never paid royalties and continued using the innovation globally.
Speaker 1:So they sued In 2017, what followed was a years-long legal rollercoaster. Fifa tried to invalidate the patent. They argued the invention wasn't novel, that it wasn't inventive, that it was obvious.
Speaker 3:But in 2023, brazil's Superior Court of Justice ruled firmly the patent was valid, fifa had infringed it and they owed damages around $40 million. That's not small change for a can of foam.
Speaker 1:What made the case resonate wasn't just the spray. It was the principle that even small, seemingly humble inventions deserve recognition and enforcement, even against the biggest names in sport.
Speaker 3:And, yes, this was one of the few times in football history when a referee's stool stole the legal spotlight. So let's talk about names, the kind that sell shirts, perfumes and, unfortunately, get trademarked by other people. First up, lionel Messi. In 2011, he applied to trademark Messi in the European Union for sporting goods. Seems simple enough, right.
Speaker 1:Lionel Messi, a Spanish cycling brand that said Messi's name was too similar to theirs, they opposed the registration, claiming consumers would confuse the two.
Speaker 3:Now to most people that sounded unlikely. Would anyone confuse the world's most famous footballer with a mid-tier cycling label?
Speaker 1:But legally, the argument made it all the way to the EU's general court and in 2020, the court ruled in Messi's favor. It held that his reputation was so massive. He created a conceptual distinction that neutralized any phonetic similarities.
Speaker 3:Next came Neymar, who had to fight for his name. Retroactively, a Portuguese businessman had trademarked Neymar in 2012, just as Neymar was breaking through internationally.
Speaker 1:In 2019, the EU court found the trademark invalid due to bad faith. Why? Because the registrant had also tried to trademark Iker Casillas. It was a clear pattern of squatting on names of famous players without authorization.
Speaker 3:And finally, Cristiano Ronaldo. In 2017, he went to court in China after a company used his full name, Cristiano Ronaldo, on fashion and alcohol products products.
Speaker 1:The Bayesian court ruled in his favor, recognizing the name as distinctive and well-known, and concluded that the trademark would mislead consumers into thinking there was an endorsement.
Speaker 3:Together, these cases show a global principle being famous doesn't automatically protect your name, but when you enforce it, courts will back you up.
Speaker 2:Intangiblia, the podcast of intangible law. Playing talk about intellectual property.
Speaker 3:Now here's a case that started with a football simulation game and ended with a real world legal power play. In 2019, manchester United sued Sega and Sports Interactive, the creators of Football Manager, over the use of the club's name in the game. Now, football Manager is known for realism. It includes thousands of clubs and players. It's essentially a playable database of football.
Speaker 1:Here's where it gets weird. The game used the name Manchester United, but didn't use the official crest. Instead, it used the generic red and white shield.
Speaker 3:Manchester United argued that this wasn't a harmless omission. It was a deliberate workaround. They claimed Sega had avoided the crest to side to step a licensing deal and that, even without the logo, the use of the name still infringed on the club's trademark.
Speaker 1:Sega pushed back hard. They said they'd used the club name for decades in their games and that United had never objected before. That kind of passive tolerance, they argued, meant the club had effectively acquiesced.
Speaker 3:But United wasn't backing down. They went further, saying that by substituting a made-up press, the game misled consumers into thinking the club had authorized this minimalist branding. It was an odd twist being sued for not using a trademark but allegedly benefiting from its reputation.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, the case didn't go to full trial. It was settled in 2021 quietly. After that, the club was renamed Manchester UFC. In the game, a symbolic win, maybe A message to the industry?
Speaker 3:Definitely the takeaway even digital realism has limits. If your game profits from real brands, expect real legal pressure, even from clubs that seemed quiet for years. Let's fast forward to a very modern problem performance data. We're talking sprint speeds, passes, completed injury records, heat maps all the granular data collected on players during matches.
Speaker 1:Project Red Card, launched around 2020, spearheaded by former manager Russell Slade. It's a collective legal action by hundreds of current and former professional footballers and it's changing the IP playbook.
Speaker 3:The claim that companies, especially betting firms, analytics platforms and fantasy league operators, are profiting off player data without consent or compensation. These players argue that their stats are part of their persona, protected under image rights and GDPR.
Speaker 1:The legal theory is ambitious it blends data protection law, image rights and economic exploitation. If successful, it could force data platforms to license player performance, just like they license names or images data is a fact, not property.
Speaker 3:But red card supporters argue that once it's packaged and sold as a product, it crosses into the realm of IP and personal rights.
Speaker 1:The case hasn't reached court yet, but it sparked panic in the fantasy sports world, and it's inspiring similar discussions in other sports too.
Speaker 3:What's clear is this we're heading into an era where data is more than stats. It's identity and possibly property. And finally, a case from the web frontier In 2023, just ahead of the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 tournament, an individual named Eurostadelman registered the domain. We wrote 2025.com.
Speaker 1:Now Waro is shorthand for the Women's Euro UEFA owns that branding, and 2025, that's the tournament year. You don't need VAR to spot that this was opportunistic.
Speaker 3:UEFA filed a complaint under WIPO's uniform domain name dispute resolution policy. Their argument was simple the domain was confusingly similar to their trademark tournament name and was likely registered to profit from consumer confusion.
Speaker 1:The panel agreed they found the registration was made in bad faith and that it clearly referenced a trademark without authorization.
Speaker 3:The domain was transferred to UEFA Domain squatting isn't new, but what makes this case stand out is its symbolic value. New, but what makes this case stand out is its symbolic value. Women's tournaments are no longer off-brand. They're premium events with real commercial and legal protection.
Speaker 1:And don't forget domain names are part of IP strategy. If you're not fast, someone else will claim the digital turf.
Speaker 3:Let's wrap up with five legal takeaways that don't just apply to football. They apply to creators, founders and rights holders across every field. One exclusivity isn't about ego. It's about economics. Broadcasting rights, even on radio, are revenue engines. If you license them, enforce them. If you don't, someone else will. Two the smallest innovations, like banishing spray, can become your strongest. File early, enforce firmly and don't get struck by big name users. Three your name is only yours if you claim it. Even icons like Messi and Neymar had to prove it in court. Fame doesn't protect you. Legal filings do. Four data ownership is no longer theoretical In the digital era. Performance patterns and personal metrics are the new copyright frontier. Five modern IP battles don't happen in silence. They happen in app stores, domain registries and game engines, and they're only getting more visible.
Speaker 1:If football has taught us anything, it's that talent wins matches, but structure wins tournaments. The same applies to your ideas, your brand and your legal footprint.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us on Intangiblia. As always, we'll be back next Tuesday with more IP stories that tackle creativity, commerce and the culture we all share.
Speaker 1:And until then, protect your goals, legal and literal.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Intangiblia, the podcast of intangible law playing. Talk about intellectual property. Did you like what we talked today? Please share with your network. Do you want to learn more about intellectual property? Subscribe now on your favorite podcast player. Follow us on Instagram, facebook, linkedin and Twitter. Visit our website wwwintangibliacom. Copyright Leticia Caminero 2020. All rights reserved. This podcast is provided for information purposes only.