Kyle Phillips

Kyle Phillips is a Partner at Howard Kennedy, where he co-heads the Sport team. An expert in financial crime and regulation, Kyle’s work includes advising clients on regulatory investigations. For example, he has acted for an individual in relation to their investigation by the Esports Integrity Commission. Kyle has been acknowledged as a ‘key lawyer’ in Howard Kennedy’s Sport department by The Legal 500, which recognises him as ‘a key contact for client defences following regulatory breaches’.[1]

1. When did your interest in sports law begin?
 
We’ve got to be careful how we define “sports law” because, with the nature of sport, there’s so many different aspects to it. I’d say one thing that Howard Kennedy does quite well is that it has people from various disciplines who are passionate about sports, which means that they’ve become quite successful in the sports sector. For me personally, I’ve always been passionate about criminal law and I’ve always been passionate about sport. My brother was a professional footballer, whilst I had a failed attempt at being a professional footballer, but played semi-professionally and played various other sports. In fact, my first career was a teacher and one of the subjects I taught was Physical Education, so I’ve always been hugely involved with sport and have always been involved with coaching, and so it was just sort of a natural progression to combine the two. 

2. How did you start to establish yourself as a sports lawyer? 

First of all I established myself as an expert in crime, financial crime and regulatory matters, but there’s a lot of overlap with sports law, and I think the skillsets that I have in those areas lend themselves to helping clients, whether that be with disciplinary proceedings or allegations of a criminal nature. So, it was just a really good opportunity to kind of combine the two and to be able to be an expert in criminal law but also keep a hand in and work in something that I was passionate about (the sports sector). 

3. Please could you describe an interesting case that you have worked on? 

This is a very difficult question for me because, given the nature of the work I do, many of my cases are confidential. I get a range of issues where we represent individuals on disciplinary matters. The team itself had a very good success recently on a tennis/ATP matter, but for myself, a lot of them are allegations that are made against individuals and part of my success is keeping them out of the public eye, for example by making sure that they don’t proceed to court or formal disciplinary procedures. Individuals in the sports sector are often at risk of false allegations given their high profile, and we work hard to ensure we protect our clients’ reputation as well as looking after their legal interests. There are many interesting cases that the firm’s done, we’ve got a very strong sport sector. For example, we are representing Yorkshire Cricket after the racial discrimination allegations and helping them navigate through what was a very difficult period for them. 

4. What are the rewards and challenges of working in the sport sector? 

[Regarding the rewards:] I think the diversity of cases we are instructed on. It’s very rare that any two cases are the same. So you’ll have a matter where you’ll have a criminal allegation, a matter where there could be financial issues for example around tax, another with regulatory disciplinary proceedings, and you also have the aspect where we do independent reviews and enquiries so where things have gone wrong in a sport and they want to have a look at their corporate governance. This variety is what makes working in the sports sector unique and hugely rewarding, particularly when you have a successful outcome for your client.  
 
As for the challenges of working in the sport sector, I think there are a lot of challenges around the level of finances that are available in different sports, and different levels of certain sports. There is a strong desire to bring in good governance in the sport sector and to safeguard participants, from the regulatory bodies down to the clubs, but there are very few who have the finances available to properly dedicate to the governance, including having the resources and obtaining proper advice. It’s a big challenge they face, particularly with the difficulties that arise and their responsibilities to protect and safeguard individuals involved.

5. Do you have any predictions for the future of sports law? 

I think there’ll be greater emphasis on governance and integrity across all areas of sport. I think they’re getting tighter with regulations, for example the new FIFA regulations for agents. There will be greater scrutiny to ensure that individuals, players, coaches, and those behind the scenes are well-protected. We are seeing more examples of allegations of abuse and bullying in sports, some of them historic. So there is greater responsibility placed on institutions to ensure procedures are in place to ensure these issues do not arise, but also if they do, to make sure they are responded to properly. 
 
6. Linked to that, do you think complaints that are made, similar to the nature of the Yorkshire Cricket allegations, should be in the public eye or be kept private?  

It very much depends on the nature of the case. For example, there could be individuals concerned who require protection, or the clubs themselves might have false allegations made against them, in which case their reputation’s dragged through the mud needlessly. But on the flip side to that, there needs to be a degree of transparency about what is going on, and if things are going wrong, people need to be able to know what has happened to be able to respond to that to protect the individuals who may be in the firing line. It is also important to ensure that where things do go wrong, those responsible are held to account.  

7. If you could change one rule, law or custom in sport, what would it be?

I’ll veer off my area a little bit, but particularly in relation to education. If you think about the amount of people who try to make it as an athlete, for example, in football, very few of them make it to the professional standard and very few of them will make it to a position where they can make a career out of it or make enough earnings to see them through. I think this is one area where a big change needs to be made, to ensure that individuals are properly educated from a young age and also have options available to them in the event they don’t make it. Now, that could be young kids in school, it could also be players in sport who are coming to the end of their career. For example, by offering opportunities for them to go to university or get work experience, work closer with businesses and companies, to provide second careers for them. I think there needs to be greater protection in sport in terms of education and second careers. 
 
[In response to a proposal for one universal sports body to carry out this role, as opposed to individual sporting organisations:]

Yeah, I think that’d be difficult. We work quite closely with sports associations and have in the past provided opportunities for work experience and career days, so they can meet with the team, understand the career trajectory, how they might get qualified, what areas of law they might be interested in, discuss what that actually looks like in real life. We do a lot of work with charities as well, where we work with children from less advantaged backgrounds. I think there’s a lot more work that can be done with the clubs themselves though, particularly where they’ve got the finances, and, for me, for that to feed down to the lower levels in sport to make sure there is proper funding put aside to protect individuals and ensure that they are able to continue with their education. 

8. What advice would you give to aspiring sports lawyers? What is the biggest lesson that you have learned in your career? 

The biggest lesson that I’ve learned and the best advice I can give is to be the best lawyer you can, first and foremost. That’s your primary role. There’s no point in being interested in the sport sector if you’re giving poor advice. To do that, learn from others, learn from those more experienced than you. If you’re coming into it, make sure that you’re surrounded by people who are good, but even learn from those that do their job poorly, you can learn from mistakes and you can learn from how things are done well. I think just never stop learning. Even as a partner, I look back and I always think, ‘How could I have done that better?’. Now, you might get a really good result for a client, but there will often be times where you think, ‘Do you know what, I’ve learned something there’, so never stop learning, and never be afraid to ask questions. I think the more questions you ask, the more knowledge you obtain. And then if you’ve got a passion for sport, the two will combine. If you’re a very good lawyer and you’ve got an interest in sport, the opportunities will arise. 

9. Please could you describe a typical day in your life?

There’s no “day in the life” for me. I mean, things drop on my desk of an urgent nature on a regular basis. So, I could go into work and I’ll have a plan in my head about what I’m going to be doing that day, but I’ll come to the desk and there’ll be calls, there’ll be emails, there’ll be new matters that arise. I could have to go down to the police station, or get on top of an urgent matter quite quickly. I think one of the key things about my job is that you have to be quite fluid, you have to be able to respond very quickly, and that actually is one of the greatest joys of the job. It can bring its stresses, but to say there’s a typical day in my life, I think with what I do in particular, there just isn’t! 

[1]https://www.legal500.com/c/london/tmt-technology-media-and-telecoms/sport/