Best Professional Services Business Serving Football
• Brandsmiths
Brandsmiths has a leading sports law practice in the football industry. Further to the technical skill and practical experience of its lawyers, it has become the ‘go to’ Firm for those in the industry. The Sports Group provides tailored and strategic advice to top level professional football clubs, international football agencies, elite professional football players and some of the most recognisable global sports brands. Recently, Brandsmiths has advised Manchester United, Everton, YMU, Wasserman, OmniSports, Jamie Vardy, Virgil van Dijk, Roberto Carlos, Jesse Lingard, Moussa Dembele, Ben Foster, Umbro and Speedo. Over the past 18 months, the Sports Group has advised on 50+ transfers, in 20+ countries with a combined transfer fee value of over £500 million. Notable transactions included Casemiro’s transfer to Manchester United and Moussa Dembele’s transfer to Al Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia.
• Hall Brown Family Law
Hall Brown is an award-winning boutique family law firm co-founded by Sam Hall and James Brown, family law specialists both ranked in the top band of Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.
The firm is now a well-established national business and has grown to employ 60 people across 5 cities Manchester, London, Leeds, Sheffield and most recently Birmingham. The company is ranked in the top tier of the independent legal directories, listed by the Times newspaper as one of the country’s top 200 law firms (all disciplines) and ranked by Best Companies as one of the top 5 best small companies to work for in the UK 2022.
Many of our specialist lawyers have significant expertise in cases involving professional footballers and other sportspeople or their ex-partners/spouses.
Given the necessity for client confidentiality, particularly within the footballing sector, we deal with all matters discreetly, quickly, and efficiently. We endeavour to achieve as little court involvement as possible, allowing players to purely focus on the job in hand.
Our challenge and target over the past year has been to help and educate footballers, both veterans and newcomers, to understand about the benefits and necessity of wealth structuring, protection, and future proofing.
• KSS Design Group
One third of the 92 English league grounds are already directly threatened by partial or total annual flooding. As the most high-profile sport in the world, football has a duty to showcase change and sustainability. As architects, we can influence the very beginning of the building process to steer the project vision.
Our target was to persuade our clients to embrace a re-use and green agenda.
At Toulouse, we proposed the reinvention of a long derelict, but listed, 1950’s university refectory, which is only a concrete shell covered inside and out with graffiti. ‘Before and After’ photos/visualisations inspired the client to realise the old building’s potential and be brave. They went for it and it’s on site.
For the first time in an elite training centre, we use a timber framed structure and façade, reducing embodied carbon by over 25%. Whole Life Carbon is minimised with locally sourced materials. Exceeding regulatory targets was validated by the council’s incredibly positive response. The client is delighted.
Great designs that never happen are of no use to us, the client, or the planet. A meaningful result for us is when a project delivers a sustainable outcome for all.
• Lawrence Stephens
Lawrence Stephens’ sports law team, founded in August 2023 by Mohit Pasricha, Anna Chasioti-Metson, Will Bowyer, and Jake Cohen, with Angelique Richardson joining in December 2023, boasts a entrepreneurial yet highly experienced team. The team’s diversity, including a disabled military veteran and national fin-swimming champion, enhances its relatability and ability to break down barriers in the sports law field.
With over 25 years of collective experience, the team has advised on high-profile deals, disputes, and representation contracts within men’s and women’s football, representing top athletes and clubs. Notably, they’ve provided pro bono services to young players and supported women’s football through pro bono advice and work placements. They prioritise knowledge sharing, with 80% of the team speaking at industry events and offering free education to clients. Additionally, they’re committed to fostering opportunities for emerging talent, providing work placements and delivering sports law clinics to students.
In summary, Lawrence Stephens’ sports law team combines youth, diversity, expertise, and a commitment to accessibility and education, positioning them as trusted advisors in the sports law landscape.
• Marsh
In an insurance landscape, experiencing significant changes and volitivity, we identified that we needed to create solutions seeking to:
1. Minimise the effects of the continued and developing hard market which was demonstrated in the form of Insurers restricted appetite for the provision of key policy covers.
2. Provide tailormade coverage to all levels of the football pyramid, through group arrangements across the UK.
Our challenges were significant but ultimately not insurmountable, as we secured both cover and pricing outcomes which met with clients’ needs.
• Onside Law LLP
Onside Law is a specialist sports law firm, with a particular focus on football. Having been at the forefront of the industry for two decades, working in both the men’s and women’s game, Onside Law advises on the biggest deals and disputes in football, acting for many of football’s most iconic names. Highlights from the last 12 months include working on one of, if not, the most important transfers of 2023/2024 – Jude Bellingham’s transfer from Borussia Dortmund to Real Madrid, widely reported as one of the biggest transfers in world football ever. Our women’s football department continues to grow, including by advising West Ham United FC Women, Lewes FC and London City Lionesses on a range of matters including commercial contracts, player transfers and employment matters and third party investment. We have also advised on several football club acquisitions over the past year. The team continues to go from strength to strength and has solidified its reputation as the go-to legal advisors in football.
• The PFA Business School
The PFA Business School is a unique school that has been created to help current and former players to improve their understanding of the management of the football industry and give them training to develop a new career in football. To help people who better understand the game to be able to run the game.
The football management school, created from inside the industry for football professionals.
The School offers:
– Undergraduate degree in Football & Business Management for U21 players.
– Three workshops for young players: the Player Development Programme, the Workshop a Communication Skills and Media, and a Workshop in Football Data Analytics.
– Two postgraduate diplomas for senior players, in Sport Directorship and Football Club Business Management.
– An MSc in Football Business and Sport Management.
– Two postgraduate certificates for former players: one in Football Psychology, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership, and another in EDI Directorship in Sport.
We develop practical training supported by a faculty of 130 practitioners who can not only share knowledge, but also experiences; an assessment method focused on challenging and improving the rationality of students; and case studies based on real situations in clubs, and mentored by real executives or sport directors.
• The Player Care Group
We are the market leading Player Care consultancy & education provider for the football industry, providing expertise & practical solutions to clubs around the world, as well as ‘best in class’ education courses for those working in the Player Care space as well as those wanting to enter the industry.
In 2023, we had by far our best year to date, providing the expertise, cover and network for a full restructure of Player Care, Team Operations and Kit & Equipment across the club at Brentford FC, as well as supporting Newcastle United with an in depth analysis of their provision whilst recruiting a new world class staff member for them. On the course side, we had our 250th graduate of our ‘Certificate in Player Care’ course, with now 81 of our alumni working full time in sport – and having our first graduate become a ‘Head of Player Care’, as someone who was working a part time job in hospitality when he joined our course. We have either consulted for, recruited for, educated or have a graduate working at 11/20 Premier League clubs currently.
