France: Sports Licences, Personal Insurance and the Limits of Federations’ Regulatory Autonomy
By Dr Estelle Ivanova, Attorney at Law, Paris, France
The regulatory autonomy of sports federations is a well-established feature of sports governance. Federations are entrusted with organising their sports and competitions and, within that framework, determining the conditions under which athletes participate. Yet such autonomy does not operate in a legal vacuum.
Insurance requirements provide a useful illustration of that tension. French law draws a careful distinction between the insurance obligations imposed on federations and personal insurance covering bodily injury suffered by individual licence holders. That distinction becomes particularly significant where such insurance is made a condition for obtaining a licence or participating in sports competitions.
This was precisely the issue before the French Conseil d’État in its decision of 27 June 2024 (No. 489391), concerning the French Rugby Federation (FFR). Whether a delegated sports federation could rely on its regulatory autonomy to require licence holders to take out personal accident insurance where the statutory framework treats such insurance as optional for ordinary licence holders.
A carefully calibrated statutory scheme
The starting point is the distinction drawn by the French Sports Code between liability insurance and personal accident insurance.
Under Article L.321-1, sports associations, companies and federations must take out liability insurance covering their own civil liability, that of their employees and volunteers, and that of sports participants. Licence holders and participants are expressly treated as third parties vis-à-vis one another.
Personal accident insurance is treated differently. Article L.321-4 requires sports associations and federations to inform their members of the benefits of taking out personal insurance covering bodily injury arising from their sporting activity. It does not require ordinary licence holders to obtain such insurance.
Article L.321-6 makes this distinction particularly clear. Where an accredited federation offers individuals applying for a licence the possibility of joining its collective personal insurance policy, the offer must expressly state that such membership is not compulsory.
A specific regime applies to elite athletes. Under Article L.321-4-1, delegated sports federations must take out personal insurance for licence holders registered on the ministerial list of elite athletes (sportifs de haut niveau), unless equivalent insurance cover is already in place.
The statutory framework, therefore, draws a deliberate distinction between compulsory liability insurance, optional personal accident insurance for ordinary licence holders, and specific personal insurance protection provided for elite athletes.
When federation rules go further
The FFR nevertheless went one step further. Article 222-2 of its General Regulations for the 2023–2024 season required any person seeking a licence to participate in competitions organised or authorised by the FFR to take out personal insurance covering bodily injury arising from the practice of rugby. The insurance had to provide cover at least equivalent to that available under the collective policy taken out by the FFR.
The issue, therefore, was not whether personal accident insurance was desirable, nor whether the FFR could offer such cover to its licence holders. The question was whether the federation could make it compulsory.
The Conseil d’État began by acknowledging the regulatory powers of delegated sports federations. In carrying out the public service entrusted to them, they may determine the rules governing participation in competitions and events that they organise or authorise, including the conditions governing access to competitions.
Those powers are, however, subject to an important limit. They cannot be exercised where the relevant rules have already been laid down by the legislature or regulatory authorities.
In the field of insurance, the Conseil d’État found that the legislature had established a comprehensive statutory framework governing insurance requirement in sport. The French Sports Code provides for liability insurance covering licence holders, information concerning personal accident insurance, the optional nature of collective personal insurance for other licence holders, and specific protection for elite athletes.
It followed that a federation could not use its regulatory powers to impose an additional personal insurance requirement on licence holders.
Therefore, the FFR could not lawfully make such insurance a condition for obtaining a licence or participating in competitions, whether through its collective policy or equivalent individual cover. Accordingly, the Conseil d’État ordered the FFR to repeal the relevant provisions and adapt its licensing procedure accordingly.
The practical reach of the ruling in CNOSF conciliation
The practical implications of this ruling were subsequently reflected in conciliation proceedings reported in the CNOSF 2025 Activity Report of the Conference of Conciliators (Rapport d’activité de la Conférence des conciliateurs).
A licence holder challenged the federation’s refusal to renew his licence after his application had been treated as incomplete, because he had declined to join the collective insurance policy or provide evidence of equivalent personal insurance. Relying upon the Conseil d’État decision of 27 June 2024 (No. 489391), he contested the personal insurance requirement, which the CNOSF conciliators considered to be based on annulled provisions and, therefore, unlawful.
The case also raised a procedural issue. Under Article L.231-1 of the French Sports Code governing relations between the public and the administration (Code des relations entre le public et l’administration), silence for two months gave rise to an implied decision of acceptance.
The conciliators emphasised the binding effect of the Conseil d’État decision and found that requirements, based on the annulled provisions, could neither interrupt the statutory period nor prevent an implied decision of acceptance from arising. The licence, therefore, was deemed to have been tacitly granted upon expiry of the two-month period.
The conciliators, therefore, proposed that the federation should issue the licence without delay and, if requested, confirm in writing that it had been implicitly granted. The proposal was accepted by both parties.
The conciliation thus illustrates the practical reach of the Conseil d’État ruling. An insurance requirement that could no longer lawfully be imposed could not continue to operate indirectly as an obstacle to the grant of a licence.
When “optional” means optional.
Dr Estelle Ivanova may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
