Challenges of legal structure and judicial principles governing the Statutes of the Iranian Football Federation

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the legal framework and principles governing the Statutes of the Iranian Football Federation [FFIRI (The acronyms FFIRI and IRIFF have been interchangeably employed in various correspondences involving the AFC and FIFA). The FFIRI Statutes, which defines and explains the legal structure of the organization, is central to the establishment of judicial principles governing the football organization. It serves as the official framework for establishing substantive legal principles, and as such, is subject to challenges. The challenges surrounding the FFIRI Statutes are primarily concentrated around three main areas: sports-related laws, legal structure definitions in the Statutes, and the jurisdiction of judicial bodies within the Football Federation. In this article, a comparative analysis of the latest version of the FFIRI Statutes with its previous version is presented to assess the resulting improvements and shortcomings, as well as identify any remaining unaddressed issues, both in terms of form and substance.