Image Right Clauses in Football Contracts: Masterstroke for Mutual Success?

Football, which was once considered only a game, as now metamorphosed into a never-ending drama, “a soap opera watched all over the world” [1]. The overall appeal of sport has thus made it increasingly synonymous with wealth creation [2]. Particularly, football as a business continues to grow at an exponential rate from year to year. As revealed by Deloitte, this staggering growth becomes more obvious if one considers that the revenue generated by premier league clubs in less than 2 full games in the 2016/17 session surpassed the whole broadcast revenue generated for all the first division matches 25 years ago [3]. This monumental growth is underscored by the fact that many people are literally “addicted” to the beautiful game’ with billions hooked to their TV screens to watch the next of the volley of weekend and weekday spectacles. Another fact that shows the commercial advantage provided by the media provides is that whilst match-day revenue was the primary means of income for clubs at the inception of the premier league in the 1991/92 session, it had become the smallest by the 2014/15 session [3].