Name: Game changers: Law, power & the business of modern sport
Start: 2026-09-16T14:00:00Z
End: 2026-09-16T16:45:00Z

Mishcon de Reya's Annual Sports Conference

This conference brings together leading legal and commercial experts to explore the forces reshaping modern sport. From high-stakes litigation over historic results to the evolving rules on club ownership and governance, we examine where power now lies. We will also unpack the rapidly changing media landscape, where broadcast rights, streaming, and new revenue models are redefining the industry. Across three dynamic panels, we consider how law, regulation, and commercial strategy are converging.

Sessions

Can you sue your way to a championship or medal?

Kavan Bakhda, the Head of the Sports Group at Mishcon de Reya, will be joined by Nick de Marco KC, a leading sports law barrister and Otmar Szafnauer, the Chairman and Founder of Soft Pauer, ex F1 Team Principal of Alpine, CEO and Team Principal Aston Martin, and Racing Point and COO Force India.

This panel explores the growing intersection of law and sport, examining when and why litigation becomes a viable strategy in challenging sporting outcomes. Using the high-profile Massa case as a springboard, the discussion will unpack what such disputes can unlock-not just for individual athletes, but for the governance and integrity of sport more broadly.

Experts will consider the legal pathways available to revisit results years after the event, analysing what remedies are realistically achievable and where the limits lie. The session will also tackle key practical issues, including exposure arising from historic events, limitation periods, evidentiary hurdles, and the extent to which courts are willing to intervene-even where sporting regulations declare results “final”.

Following the fans - how shifting fan behaviour is challenging sports' commercial models

Our panel of industry executives will dissect where fans are now found, and what this means for the media and commercial models underpinning sports around the world.

Financial (Un)Fair play in football: from profit & sustainability to squad cost rules, and how the new Fit and Proper test will apply.

Chaired by Dean Poster, a corporate lawyer who has advised clients on sales, purchases and investments in Division1, the Championship and the Premier League, this panel will examine how the football financial fair play rules have been implemented in England over the last few years, and consider how the landscape will change as we move to as we move to "squad cost" rules and ratios next season in the Premier League and Championship. We will also consider the new enhanced integrity checks and the West Ham United recent experience of their Chairman deciding to step down.

The panel members all have recent personal experience of cases brought against football clubs for breach of the Football League’s profit and sustainability rules, including most recently against West Bromwich Albion.

This conference is for in-house lawyers, barristers, decision makers dealing with governance, ownership, and commercial strategy.