Thesis title: Autonomia privata e regolamentazione sovranazionale nei contratti di lavoro sportivo: il caso del calcio professionistico in Serie A
The thesis aims to highlight the scope of private and contractual autonomy in sports employment agreements, with a specific focus on professional football and Serie A. The analysis examines the balance between the contractual freedom of the parties and the complex regulatory framework that governs the employment relationship between football players and clubs. In this context, employment agreements must comply with several regulatory sources: starting from Legislative Decree No. 36/2021, which comprehensively regulates sports employment relationships, through the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement entered into by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), the National Professional Serie A League (LNPA), and the Italian Footballers’ Association (AIC), to the established principles of labour law and the provisions of the Italian Civil Code. At the same time, the supranational sports regulatory framework plays a key role in defining admissible clauses and in setting the limits of contractual autonomy. In particular, the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (FIFA RSTP) and the case law of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. This complexity is further heightened by recent decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which have highlighted the incompatibility of certain FIFA RSTP provisions with the principles of EU law, calling into question the concept of contractual stability - a cornerstone of sports law. The thesis also examines agreements that, although valid under civil law, may be ineffective within the sports system, for example due to failure to file them with the competent sports authorities. In this regard, the so-called “Ronaldo side agreement” exemplifies the tensions between civil law validity and effectiveness within the sporting order. Furthermore, the thesis discusses the similarities and differences between the so-called European and North American models of sport, analysing their structural, legal, and economic features in order to assess whether useful insights can be drawn from one for the other, with a view to comparative law and the possible evolution of sports law. To this end, the LNPA Collective Agreement is compared with the Collective Bargaining Agreement concluded between the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to highlight how collective bargaining and negotiating autonomy are expressed in profoundly different regulatory and cultural contexts. Finally, the analysis considers several clauses actually used in the contractual practice of Serie A clubs, in order to assess their authenticity, compatibility with the current regulatory framework, and actual impact on the balance of power and rights between the parties. The aim of the thesis is, therefore, to explore how the negotiating parties can carve out a space for autonomy in defining their contractual relationships within such a complex and multi-level framework, thereby contributing to a critical reflection on the evolution of sports labour law and the protection of contractual autonomy in professional Serie A football.