Making a case for a basketball arbitration tribunal

A post on X of a local Ugandan basketball player fundraising for the treatment of his injury has been doing the rounds on social media. The Federation of Uganda Basketball Associations (Fuba) president Nasser Sserunjogi’s response to it particularly caught my attention. 

He wondered if the player had a contract with the club and whether there were provisions, if any, in those contracts that cater for injuries’ eventualities.

This got me thinking about my interaction a few years ago with Brian Cucu, proprietor of Basketball256 who exclaimed about the lack of basketball disputes anywhere, be it in Court or otherwise. Interestingly, even at the Court of Arbitration of Sports, there are fewer basketball disputes in comparison to football for instance.

In 2006, a quick, efficient and less costly and innovative dispute resolution mechanism known as the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT) was developed by Fédération Internationale de Basketball (Fiba) to handle contractual disputes between players, clubs, agents and coaches.

This tribunal delivers its decisions on the principles of equity without referring to any municipal law and delivers its decisions usually between six-nine months from the time of filing of the case.

It is not mandatory for basketball disputes to be handled by the BAT. A dispute is only admissible before it if the contractual agreement between the parties provides for the BAT as the arbitration disputes resolution mechanism. The BAT only handles contractual disputes, not eligibility, disciplinary or technical issues.

Like many of these international sports dispute resolution mechanisms, the BAT is located in Geneva, Switzerland and is governed by Swiss law

BAT awards (decisions) are final and binding the parties upon the parties and can be enforced through the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards.

There are sanctions for failure to honour a BAT award and FIBA can mete out punishments such as bans on international transfers of players and monetary fines.

BAT decisions are not appealable to CAS, but to the Swiss Federal Tribunal but on only matters of law such as a jurisdictional challenge or a violation of a fundamental rights.

The BAT has many times held against the defence of “financial difficulties faced by a club” as no defence. The BAT has also consistently determined that simple breaches of contract cannot pass to terminate employment relationships between parties. The breaches have to be serious for them to amount to “just cause” for termination of a contract.

With increasing disputes every year being filed at the BAT Secretariat, the BAT has clearly been growing in prominence, and there is a need for our basketball players to become aware of it and incorporate the same in their contracts.

There are a few issues regarding access to justice as far as the BAT is concerned because there are advance payments supposed to be made by the parties coming before it, but nonetheless it is an effective basketball dispute resolution forum that our basketball players should take note of.

Ojakol is a Sports Lawyer, Partner at Matrix Advocates, and Law Lecturer at IUEA 

[email protected]

Email: [email protected]
Contacts:0742116305/0787261019