Sports justice: from the disciplinary file to the TAD and the CAS

Published on 26 June 2026

Sport is governed by its own rules and by its own system of justice, which sits alongside ordinary law without fully overlapping with it. For anyone facing a disciplinary file, what is decisive is usually twofold: identifying the competent body and, above all, meeting deadlines that here are often very short.

The usual route

• Federation disciplinary bodies: the first instance before the relevant federation (competition and disciplinary committees).
• Administrative Court for Sport (TAD): governed by Act 39/2022 of 30 December on Sport, it is the last administrative instance in disciplinary matters in Spanish sport. Its scope is worth measuring carefully: since that Act, the TAD only reviews federation sanctions that entail the definitive deprivation, revocation or suspension of all the rights attached to the licence (articles 114 and 120). Ordinary competition discipline, a few matches' suspension, is exhausted within the federation and does not reach the TAD (articles 97 and 117).
• Administrative-litigation route: the TAD's decisions exhaust the administrative route and are challenged before the Central Administrative Courts (article 120.4 of Act 39/2022).
• CAS, in Lausanne: international sports arbitration, the leading forum for matters with an international dimension (competitions, doping, transfers).

Why deadlines are everything

In sports justice, a day lost can close off a route. Preparing the submission and the evidence in advance, before the deadline bites, is what makes the difference between defending yourself well and arriving too late.

A practical example

Take an athlete whom a federation committee suspends for several matches in the middle of the season. There the appeal is exhausted within the federation, through the complaint system that its own disciplinary rules must provide for (article 97.2 of Act 39/2022), and the time limit is often counted in a few working days. Preparing the appeal and the evidence in advance can be the difference between competing the following weekend or being left out. Only where the sanction goes as far as definitively depriving, revoking or suspending all the rights attached to the licence does an appeal to the Administrative Court for Sport open up.

If the matter has an international dimension (for example, a sanction by an international sports body), the route to follow may not be the Spanish one but arbitration before the CAS in Lausanne, with its own rules and deadlines. Identifying from the outset which instance has jurisdiction avoids losing the only opportunity to mount a defence.

How I approach it

It is a field I know closely: I trained in it specifically (a master's degree in Sports Law from the ICAB) and worked in it during my years in business law practice, with athletes and clubs. To my usual rigour I add here a close watch on deadlines that do not forgive.

If a sanction has landed on you, the first thing I need to know is the exact date it was notified: that is when the clock starts, and here there is little margin to spare. Write to me as soon as you receive it, or read first how I handle sports law matters.

Editorial responsibility: Carles Jiménez, attorney-at-law (Barcelona Bar No. 34.946). This note was prepared with the assistance of artificial-intelligence tools and reviewed and approved by the author before publication.

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