FIFA Football Tribunal appoints Gonçalo Almeida as judge 

FIFA Football Tribunal has appointed Gonçalo Almeida (pictured) as judge of the Agents Chamber. This is the first time that a Portuguese lawyer, independent of any stakeholder in the football industry, has been appointed to the FIFA Tribunal. 

Almeida will assume these functions for a period of 4 years (2023-2027), and the Chamber of Agents, established following the new FIFA Agents Regulation, will have jurisdiction over disputes of an international nature between FIFA Football Agents and Players, Coaches, Clubs, Federations and/or Leagues. 

Gonçalo Almeida has more than 20 years of experience in the area of Sports Law, being a world reference in this area. In September 2001, after having completed the first edition of the Master’s Degree in Sociology, Management and Sports Law, taught in England, Italy and Switzerland, under the supervision of CIES, he joined the FIFA Player Statute Department in Zurich, where he worked as a lawyer until March 2006, having subsequently embarked on the practice of law in Portugal and established the Almeida Law Firm, Dias e Associados, where over the last 17 years, he has legally represented numerous clubs, players, coaches, agents/intermediaries and even Football Federations, on a worldwide scale. 

“It is with great pride and satisfaction that I received this appointment, and I cannot fail to thank FIFA and the FPF, the latter in the person of its President Dr. Fernando Gomes, for the unsurpassed support they have given me, recognizing in me the skills necessary to exercise such a position of enormous responsibility. In a way, I believe it is a public recognition of my professional career in the area of Sports Law, a challenge that I will embrace with the maximum commitment and professionalism with which I have always been guided in the practice of Law”, said the new judge.