Tom Grant

Tom Grant is a solicitor at Fletcher Sports Law, a firm which operates predominantly within football and specialises in advising agents. On a day-to-day basis, Tom handles both contentious and non-contentious matters, ranging from advising on agency disputes to reviewing commercial, sponsorship or endorsement agreements for high profile athletes.

1. When you were younger, had you always wanted to be involved in sport in some way as part of your career?
 
To be honest, I think if I hadn’t chosen a career that was in some way connected to sport, I would struggle to get out of bed in the morning! Once I realised I wouldn’t make it as a professional sportsman (which was fairly early on!), I began to look for ways in which I could stay involved in sport. I organised work experience at a law firm in Manchester with a strong sports law practice when I was about sixteen or seventeen and my interest sparked from there really.
 
2. How did you first start working as a sports lawyer? 

Despite my work experience placement, I had no real contacts within the legal industry, let alone within sports law. I didn’t do a law degree at university so this meant that I first had to complete the GDL and then the LPC (and hope to secure a training contract in the process) before I could even consider working as a sports lawyer.
 
This was a bit of a daunting prospect, so I was doing as much as I could to get involved in sports law whilst working / studying. I attended as many networking events as possible and, without really knowing anyone, I would just walk up to groups of people asking for their opinions on certain topics or sit and listen to the speakers discuss relevant issues within the sports law world.
 
The door finally opened when I took annual leave from a paralegal job I was working at in Manchester to volunteer at Soccerex. I had no choice but to volunteer as it was about £1,500 per delegate ticket and, as a student, I didn’t have that kind of money lying around! Once I was inside the venue, I spent the day listening to speakers and meeting sports lawyers from around the world. Whilst at this event I was introduced to my now boss, Paul Fletcher [Managing Director of Fletcher Sports Law], and I asked him for work experience at his firm. This work experience led to me being offered a full-time job as a paralegal whilst I studied for my LPC, and then later a training contract.

3. What has been the most interesting sports-related case you have dealt with?  

In the time that I have been here [at Fletcher Sports Law] we have had two really big football litigation cases heard before Football Association arbitration. The first involved a high-profile Premier League player in a dispute with his former agent and the second case turned into quite a bitter dispute between an agent (a former professional footballer) and a Premier League club who hadn’t paid him the commission he was owed following a transfer. Both cases were a great experience for me as a trainee, especially as we achieved successful outcomes for both clients. I really enjoy the competitive nature of litigation, even more so when there are large sums of money involved and the pressure intensifies.
 
4. What are some key legal developments in sport that you are interested in at the moment? 

I will be interested to see how the rewriting of agency rules develops. You may have seen in the press that FIFA are already looking at the sums of money agents are earning and ways to limit them. Currently, there is only a ‘recommended’ cap on how much money agents can make, but they [FIFA] are talking about reducing this cap even further and making it a requirement rather than a ‘recommendation’.
 
It will also be interesting to see what effect Brexit has, if any, on the football industry. In particular, the loss of the Article 19 exemption under FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players could prove detrimental to UK club’s in their pursuit of elite young players and be to the benefit of European competitors.
 
5. Have you got any advice for law students considering a career in Sports Law?
 
Focus on being a good lawyer first, take the time to grow your network within the industry and be persistent. A lot of people want to do ‘Sports Law’ because it is seen as a glamourous area of Law, so it is really tough to break into, you have to persevere.
 
If you’re considering a career in the Law more generally, make sure you apply to firms early for vacation schemes / training contracts and think carefully about what size of firm you want to work at. Joining the biggest firm when you leave university doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to learn any faster than someone who joins a smaller firm where they may get given more responsibility earlier on.
 
I know that I was lucky in a way, but this luck belies the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours that I spent over 3–4 years filling in training contract applications, preparing for interviews, or sending speculative emails / cover letters asking for a work experience or a coffee without ever receiving a response. It can be extremely disheartening, but you have to have thick skin and not take it personally if you are rejected by firm.
 
6. What are the rewards and challenges of working in the Sports sector as a lawyer?
 
For me the biggest reward comes when we win a case. As for challenges, because the vast majority of the work we do is quick turn-around, it means that the phone is never turned off and finding a work/life balance can be tricky.