The leading sports lawyer reveals his route into the profession
International law firm Withers has hired Luca Ferrari, one of Europe’s leading sports lawyers, as a partner in its Milan office. Luca joins the firm from CBA Studio Legale & Tributario, where he is head of the sport and media department.
Luca specialises in sports and image rights regulatory and commercial matters, with a strong emphasis on the international market.
What was your route into the profession?
Inspired by my grandfather, a Padua Law Faculty graduate and respected lawyer in the remote north eastern Italian region of Friuli, I studied law at the University of Padua, funded in 1222, where I graduated with a dissertation on the choice of forum in international contracts. However, I also spent a full academic year at UC Berkeley. After graduation, while flying to Scandinavia, on my way to study for an International Trade Law post-graduate masters in Finland, I met one of the then pioneering Italian football agents, who offered me a post at his office. I soon became the legal adviser within an agency representing football players of the caliber of Vialli and Del Piero.
What has been your biggest career challenge so far?
With hindsight, I realise the biggest challenge was that of leaving the football agency and reverting to the mainstream legal profession, following my passion for international and commercial law. As a licensed FIFA agent and one of the fortunate few to hold a place in the booming sports agency business, it was a bold and rather sentimental decision, though one which I never regretted.
Another memorable moment was when I convinced the then owner of SS Lazio, Sergio Cragnotti, to challenge the Italian Football Association rules limiting the fielding of non-EU players, thereby ending discrimination against newly arrived Czech player Pavel Nedved.
Which person within the legal profession inspires you most?
I tend to be inspired by models of the past.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you choose as an alternate career?
If I had the talent, a writer. More realistically, an entrepreneur.
Who is your favourite fictional lawyer?
Atticus Finch
What change would you make to the profession?
I would liberalise it much in the way it is being liberalised in the UK. I have difficulties recognising the aura of sacrality, which seems to qualify the legal profession in most European jurisdictions.
How do you relax?
Through sport, art and good books.
