France: Mediation and Conciliation in Sports Disputes – Focus on Football
By Dr Estelle Ivanova, Attorney at Law, Paris, France
France has developed a distinctive system for resolving sports disputes, combining internal remedies within sports federations; statutory conciliation before the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (Comité national olympique et sportif français – CNOSF); consensual mediation and conciliation; arbitration; and, ultimately, judicial proceedings.
In international sports disputes, jurisdiction may also lie with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne where it is provided for by the applicable sports regulations or an arbitration agreement.
Within this legal framework, CNOSF conciliation occupies a particularly important position. In defined circumstances, it is not merely an alternative means of dispute resolution but a statutory prerequisite to litigation.
CNOSF Conciliation: A Statutory Mechanism
Article L.141-4 of the French Sports Code (Code du sport) entrusts the CNOSF with a statutory conciliation mission in disputes involving licence holders, sports agents, sports associations and companies, and approved sports federations. For this purpose, the CNOSF constitutes a Conference of Conciliators (Conférence des conciliateurs), whose members it appoints. Doping disputes are expressly excluded.
A distinction must be drawn between mandatory and voluntary conciliation.
Under Article R.141-5, referral to the CNOSF constitutes a mandatory preliminary step before judicial proceedings, where the dispute arises from a decision, whether or not subject to an internal appeal, taken by a sports federation in the exercise of public-authority prerogatives (prérogatives de puissance publique) or pursuant to its statutes.
The procedure is subject to strict admissibility requirements. Under Article R.141-15, an application must, in particular, be lodged within 15 days of notification or publication of the contested decision; set out the relevant facts; legal grounds and relief sought; and, where a decision is challenged, be accompanied by a copy of the contested decision, failing which the application is inadmissible. The applicant must also demonstrate a direct and personal interest in bringing the proceedings.
Under Article R.141-16, the President of the Conference conducts a preliminary review of the application and must reject it, by reasoned decision, where it falls outside the Conference jurisdiction; is manifestly inadmissible and incapable of being remedied; is manifestly unfounded; or has become devoid of purpose.
Where the application proceeds, the dispute is referred to a conciliator from the CNOSF Conference of Conciliators. The conciliator does not adjudicate the dispute as a court or arbitral tribunal would, but seeks an amicable resolution and may, where appropriate, formulate a conciliation proposal.
Alongside the mandatory procedure, Article R.141-19 also provides for voluntary conciliation where an application has been lodged after expiry of the 15-day time limit or where conciliation is not a mandatory prerequisite to judicial proceedings. The procedure requires the agreement of the parties.
An Effective Filter Before Litigation
The CNOSF 2025 Annual Report illustrates the practical significance of conciliation. In 2025, the Conference of Conciliators received 685 applications, the highest number since its creation in 1992, with football accounting for 53% of all referrals.
Of the 385 admissible disputes falling within the mandatory conciliation procedure, 252 – approximately 66% – were resolved at the conciliation stage. Of the 133 disputes in which a conciliation proposal was opposed, only 42 were subsequently brought before the courts. According to the CNOSF, the mandatory conciliation procedure under Articles L.141-4 and R.141-5 et seq. continues to operate as an effective procedural filter: in 2025, as in previous years, nearly 90% of disputes were brought to an end at the conciliation stage.
These figures demonstrate the dual function of CNOSF conciliation: facilitating amicable settlement whilst significantly reducing the number of sports disputes ultimately requiring judicial determination.
Internal Federation Procedures and Arbitration
French sports federations also operate their own internal disciplinary, regulatory and appeal bodies. These bodies are distinct from mediation and conciliation: they exercise powers conferred upon them by federation rules and, where applicable, by the statutory framework governing delegated sports federations.
Internal remedies are particularly important because CNOSF conciliation does not necessarily dispense with the requirement to exhaust available internal appeals. The CNOSF 2025 Annual Report recalls that, where federation rules provide for a mandatory internal remedy, failure to exhaust it may render a subsequent judicial challenge inadmissible.
Arbitration must likewise be distinguished from conciliation. Whereas a conciliator seeks to facilitate an agreed resolution, an arbitrator exercises an adjudicatory function and renders a binding award. The CNOSF Sports Arbitration Chamber (Chambre arbitrale du sport – CAS) provides an arbitration mechanism for private contractual sports disputes, either pursuant to an arbitration clause or to an agreement to arbitrate concluded after the dispute has arisen. Its jurisdiction is particularly suited to economic and commercial sports disputes, including sponsorship and broadcasting agreements, disputes involving sports agents, and transfer-fee disputes between clubs. Disputes arising from the exercise of public-authority prerogatives (prérogatives de puissance publique), which fall within the jurisdiction of the administrative courts, cannot be resolved through arbitration.
The Particular Position of Football
Football provides the clearest illustration of the interaction between internal sports remedies, CNOSF conciliation and judicial review. The French Football Federation (Fédération Française de Football – FFF), its regional leagues and districts and, in professional football, the Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP), operate specialised bodies dealing with disciplinary, sporting, regulatory and financial matters.
In professional football, the Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) exercises financial and regulatory supervision over clubs. It is not a mediation or conciliation body, but forms part of the internal regulatory architecture of French football. Its decisions may have significant sporting consequences, including restrictions on recruitment and measures affecting a club's participation in competitions.
Depending upon the nature of the decision and the applicable rules, internal remedies may have to be exhausted before the dispute proceeds to CNOSF conciliation and, subsequently, judicial review.
The importance of conciliation in football is particularly apparent towards the end of the sporting season, when disputes concerning player licences and eligibility, match results, promotion, relegation or other regulatory decisions may directly affect final league standings. The CNOSF 2025 Annual Report illustrates this point: disputes arising from the allegedly irregular participation of a player in a single match may ultimately determine which clubs are promoted or relegated.
The speed and specialised nature of conciliation are, therefore, particularly valuable in football, where the effectiveness of a remedy may depend upon its being obtained before the relevant sporting deadline has passed.
Conclusions
The French system does not rely upon a single method of sports dispute resolution.
It thus combines federation-based internal remedies; statutory CNOSF conciliation; consensual mediation; arbitration and judicial proceedings.
Within this architecture, CNOSF conciliation performs a distinctive role: where mandatory, it constitutes a genuine procedural prerequisite to litigation; where consensual, mediation and conciliation provide flexible means of resolving disputes without formal adjudication.
The 2025 figures – and the predominance of football disputes in particular – demonstrate its practical significance.
The French model also illustrates how conciliation can operate as an intermediate mechanism between sporting autonomy and judicial protection, promoting amicable settlement and procedural efficiency, whilst preserving compliance with French law and, ultimately, access to judicial review.
Dr Estelle Ivanova may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
