Interview with a sports lawyer. Part 9. Ivan Bykovskiy

I am delightful to share with you our interview with an excellent lawyer, a former legal counsel of Russian Football Union, Master in International Sports Law (ISDE), author of multiples articles and his own Sports Law Blog (http://www.ivanbykovskiy.com/, https://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/sportpravo/ ), and an associate of one of the best Sports Law Firm in the world – Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo Lawyers based in Spain (https://www.ruizcrespo.com/en/) – Ivan Bykovskiy (LinkedIn).

– Good evening, Ivan! I have expected this interview so much. I would like to thank you for this opportunity to ask you about your career in Sports Law. And my first question. You have an excellent law education in Russia and Spain. Could you tell me please what is the biggest difference between higher education systems in both countries and which one do you like more?

– Good evening, Valeryia and greetings to all viewers of your blog. I would like to thank you for having invited me to do this interview and to share my experience. First of all, since I graduated from a Russian university (Kutafin Moscow State Academy of Law) almost 10 years ago, I am quite convinced that a lot of things have changed since then, even in my alma mater I can affirm that the Spanish education system is attractive in terms of involvement of students in the process and often offers them certain flexibility with handling with the workload. However, it all depends on a certain university and a program chosen.

– You have graduated from three Universities in Spain (Universitat Politècnica de València, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, and Universidad Internacional de Valencia) and you obtained your LL.M. degree from ISDE (Madrid). How did you manage to get education together with working in one of the best law firms?

– UNIR (La Rioja) and VIU are the two universities that I had to study in order to be able to exercise advocacy in Spain as I always wanted to represent the clients in national Spanish courts. In Spain it is obligatory to follow studies in the local university to be eligible to practice law and be admitted to the bar, hence, those two universities were kind of an obligatory step in my education. It took several years of studies of Bachelor degree and a Master in Advocacy degree followed by an admission to the bar exam to become an attorney in Spain. The program I studied in Polytechnical University is a sports management master. The main goal of this program was to diversify my set of skills and get experience in the sphere directly related to the sports law.

The main advantage of the educational programs in Spain is the possibility to study in a remote way, i.e. online (by video conferences). You will still need to attend classes, prepare assignments, participate in discussions and appear in person to examination which is held usually twice a year. It is evident that the study process is to be realized outside working hours and the assignments usually have a strict deadline that you have to meet in order to obtain a grade of 5 or more of 10/10 scale. All these may help you to improve your time-management skill by handling several tasks at one time.

– Let’s talk about Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo Lawyers. How have you started the career in this law firm, and could you tell me please, what a lawyer needs to do to work in such a company?

– As you mentioned in the beginning, I worked for the Russian Football Union (which is a national football association of Russia) as a legal counsel for almost three years prior to starting the Master program at ISDE, so this experience was very useful during the Master as I was well acquainted of the legal concepts and sports law in general. I think this was mentioned before in some of previous interviews, that the Master program of ISDE consists of a certain period of internship and that the students are placed in different law firms for six months. In my case I was allocated to Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo, where after a period of the internship, I was made an offer to enter the firm as associate.

To be honest, the legal work in the law firm differs almost completely from the legal position in Football association. In the law firm the major part of my work now is related to arbitration and litigation where I represent the client. In the Football association it was more of a job from the regulatory side of things, when you are responsible for drafting regulations and implementing them, handling the meetings of Disciplinary Committee (I simultaneously occupied positions of the secretary of DisCo of the Football association and Dispute Resolution Chamber). I prefer the litigation part of legal job; it reminds me of sport in its essence, which is competition.

– In your opinion, why Spanish lawyers are one of the best sports lawyers in the world? Because of sports popularity, an excellent sports education system, or maybe something else?

– I wouldn’t say that Spanish lawyers shall be considered as the best sports lawyers of the world. There are plenty of qualified and experienced attorneys in sport all over the world. We gather altogether at annual conference in Madrid or Geneve to discuss the latest news in the field of Sports law. However, we do have a lot of good sports lawyers in Spain owing to the popularity of sports in Spain. Every significant sports event is massively discussed by supporters, analyzed by the press and specialists. In the evening, when fixture is ongoing, the bars and cafeterias are fully booked not only by avid supporters, but also by average citizens, because football forms a part of national culture. When talking about sports lawyers I would say that every country has its’ own specialists in this particular sphere and it just happens that there are a lot of sports lawyers based in Spain. On the other hand, mind the competition: the more lawyers you have, the higher is the competition between them.

– Which books (films) exist in your must-read (watch) list related to the sports law and daily life?

– There are plenty of books dedicated to the sports law nowadays, nevertheless, which book to choose shall anyway depend on the particular topic the reader wants to focus on. No doubt, a must-read is certainly available jurisprudence. Now both FIFA and Court of Arbitration for Sport try to adjust their justice system to be more transparent and often publish their respective decisions. To be aware of the potentially new approaches in the decision-making process, you shall be up to date with the recent decision of courts and arbitrations. It also helps to argument any position that the lawyer shall adopt in any case.

By the way, I appreciate that you mentioned my blog where I inform the Russian-speaking audience of the latest news. Unfortunately, for certain period of time I was very sceptical on doing that, but I now try to write more regularly. As the main purpose of that blog is informational, I post some sports law related topics and news which seem interesting to me and hopefully to the readers.

– What advice would you give to our readers and young sports lawyers?

– Firstly, don’t be afraid to defend your own opinion even if it does not correspond to the one of your colleagues or even your superior, provided you can also base your opinion on the legal argumentation. As some may say, two lawyers equal to three positions. Secondly, personally I consider essential the ability and the desire to step outside your comfort zone. Even if you think it might be too late to change something in your life, be sure, it is never too late to study, learn something new and to advance. And lastly, read, talk and exchange your thoughts with others, by doing that you can improve yourself and to learn something new.

– I would like to thank you for this interview, to wish you to enjoy your work and I sincerely wish you a Merry Christmas, successes, and victories next year!

Thank you, best wishes to you too!