ELPA webinar on fundamentals of contractual agreements

Monday evening, several ELPA members attended a webinar focused on fundamentals of contractual agreements, organised in collaboration with ELPA’s partner Themoove. The goal of the online course was to help educate players on the topic of contracts and the potential issues they could encounter in player-agent or player-club relations. A 2-hour session was led by Valeria Horyna, an experienced Sports Lawyer with a demonstrated history of working in the international sports industry. She has last experiences in working within FIFA and is currently a Senior Legal Counsel at the International Hockey Federation.

Together with two other Themoove associates Beatriz Rica and Mar Rovira, Valeria Horyna presented general aspects of different types of contractual agreements and explained details surrounding salary/retribution, terms of termination of the contract, tax residency, image rights, etc…

Sergio Rodriguez was one of the attendees and he explains: "I think seminars ELPA is organising are extremely needed and they are very well organised. Players need to have opportunities to educate themselves, especially on such an important topic as this one. I like the fact that theory from the legal aspect was connected to real-life examples of a former legendary player. I invite all players, especially young players, to attend these types of ELPA seminars. There is a lot to gain."

Players had the pleasure to listen to EuroLeague legend Igor Rakocevic, who was sharing his experiences. The 3-time EuroLeague scoring champion had a two-decades long professional career in several clubs, leagues and countries. During the course of the webinar, he presented many cases and "traps" he encountered during his long career and explained to players which things they must consider when signing agreements.

"After April 2020 we have successfully organised another ELPA webinar. We will continue to prepare these kind of educational programs, since the feedback from players is very positive. We wish all our members would have the possibility to attend them in the future. We understand the busy schedule of teams, therefore I would like to thank those clubs that understood the importance of the webinar and adjusted their team activities, so their players could participate." – Anze Blazic, Secretary General of ELPA.

As part of their mission, ELPA will continue to search for suitable dates, either during or after the season, and present various educational programs to their members.