By Andrew Warshaw
March 20 – A British football agent who claims he missed out on a lucrative World Cup sponsorship deal because of FIFA’s behaviour has finally won the right to take the organisation to court in the UK.
Tony McGill claims he brokered a deal to secure top Chinese sponsor Vivo for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups but was cut out from receiving commission in return.
McGill claims he was the intermediary who brought the two parties together having already brokered a similar deal between Vivo and Premier League clubs via marketing rights company Lagardère.
Yet several months after the initial introduction in August 2016, he alleges FIFA ignored his role when it tied up the deal which was formally announced in May last year and is rumoured to be worth around £400 million.
McGill is claiming misuse of confidential information but last month FIFA failed to appear in court in Newcastle in the north-east of England, close to McGill’s home town of Sunderland, to explain how it conducted negotiations, instead instructing a firm of London lawyers to dispute UK jurisdiction.
Now, however, McGill has received permission to serve the case in the UK after citing the so-called Lugano convention. FIFA has been issued with a court order, with a date of May 22 set aside for a 30-minute hearing, also in Newcastle.
FIFA has seven days to dispute the order but McGill, who has sent the paperwork direct to FIFA’s senior sales manager in charge of sponsorship Christopher Axer, says he is digging in his heels and going nowhere.
“It’s a small victory in what I expect to be a long legal battle,” he told Insideworldfootball.
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