Gary Mellor

Gary Mellor is a Senior Partner at Beswicks Legal and Director of Beswicks Sports Ltd. As well as being an elite sports lawyer, having advised a range of athletes and clubs, Gary is also an Orlando City Soccer Club founder and a trustee of the Stoke City Football Club Community Trust. 

1. How did you start working in sports law?  

I was very fortunate to be picked up by Beswicks Legal as they had Sports, Entertainment and Media clients and I believe the fact that I had a CV which included a lot of sport to a certain level helped me get the job. If you were successful in Sports and Entertainment and came from the Stoke area then you’d normally use Beswicks.

I worked on a commercial agreement as a trainee for Ray Reardon, who was a World Snooker Champion, for a board game and did some work for Sir Stanley Matthews post-career. You would quite often see a Denis Smith or a Lee Chapman in reception or chairmen of professional clubs waiting to see our senior partner. Even the Radio One DJ Bruno Brookes (obviously all before your time)!
 
What I decided to do as a dispute resolution lawyer used to dealing with contracts was try and develop a Sports department, which wasn’t easy. I was fortunate that people like Dominic Cork and Dean Headley as English Internationals had played in the North Staffordshire League, plus a good friend of mine, Adrian Heath, had gone on to have an unbelievable career and I helped him following his move from Everton to Espanyol and as he was coming back to Aston Villa.
 
I originally had Sport and Music (Manchester Indie bands predominantly) but then had a player come to see me with a view to exiting his contract with his Agent who he’d fallen out with. I then did his move to Nottingham Forest which helped me to start advising players.

2. Please can you describe a particularly interesting case you have worked on in the past?
  
Our most interesting case recently was our client Jay Rodriguez being charged by the FA on a racism case. All of our Legal Team were in no doubt he was innocent from day one and we instructed a QC and lip-reading experts to successfully help him through a horrendous allegation.

I have also previously acted for John Crawley when he left Lancashire and we instructed Cherie Blair on a difficult case.
 
Both of these made the front pages of all the national newspapers and headline TV news. I have also successfully kept a number of stories out of the newspapers, which is a full-on experience when you are threatening Sunday Tabloids with injunctions.

3. What legal challenges do you think the sports industry will face over the next few years?  

Sports Law is becoming more and more fashionable due to the seven number figures involved in the TV deals and sponsorship revenue. People need smart lawyers to protect their clients’ interests. At this moment in time, we are spending every day advising clubs and players on wage cuts/deferrals and also advising players on their contractual rights in these unprecedented times.

4. What advice would you give to university students and trainee solicitors who are thinking about working in the sports industry?  

My advice to anyone wanting to get into Sports Law is to try and get as much practical experience as possible with real Sports Lawyers. There are a lot of firms and lawyers holding themselves out as Sports Lawyers that don’t really have access to the cases. 

5. Please could you give a brief overview of a typical ‘Day in the Life of Gary Mellor’?  

My usual day normally starts at about 8am and as we do quite a bit of work in North America we quite often have a full inbox from North and South America which can range from withholding tax to option agreements on South American players to advising on training compensation and various FIFA regulation.
 
We quite often have a team meeting talking about workloads, work retention, new clients, FIFA regulations and players' contracts. The new FIFA Agents regulations are a really hot topic at the moment. We also have a number of consulting agreements on a retainer with football clubs around the globe. Football is easily our number one sport but we have worked with the best talent in the world in various disciplines including boxing, cricket, Olympic sports, cycling, snooker, golf etc. It’s quite exciting to have the opportunity to work with world boxing champions and Olympic Gold medallists as we have been fortunate to do.
 
My afternoons will be spent reaching out to and taking calls from Chief Executives, Directors of Football, General Managers, Players etc.
 
My evenings quite often consist of calls with clients and contacts in North America and South America due to the time difference.