From Milano Cortina to Switzerland 2038: what’s on the horizon for sports lawyers?
With the Winter Olympics in the books, the sports law community seizes future evolutions in the management of major sporting events
by flavio caci
Experts: Federico Venturi Ferriolo, partner and head of sports law at LCA for Italy; Vincent Jäggi, partner at Kellerhals Carrard in Lausanne; Frédéric Favre, Ceo of Switzerland 2038; Riccardo Coppa, senior
associate at Kellerhals Carrard.
On Sunday, February 22, Milano Cortina 2026 officially wrapped up. For more than two weeks, starting February 6, fans and athletes could be spotted in and around the city streets, sporting wool hats and winter jackets of their national teams. At the cocktail evening hosted during Olympic week two in the Milanese office of Italian law firm LCA, in collaboration with Swiss Kellerhals Carrard, guests from the two firms were buzzing at some news echoed from the slopes of Cortina d’Ampezzo. Italian alpine ski icon Federica Brignone had just taken home the first of two Olympic golds, and Swiss wonderkid Franjo von Allmen was fresh off his third triumph on his debut Olympics. Milano Cortina 2026 has been, in fact, the first ever edition — considering both winter and summer games — officially hosted by two different cities. The competition took place on several locations across northern Italy, maximizing usage of already existing venues. New standards, the ones posed by these Games, are set to reverberate in future major sporting events.
For Federico Venturi Ferriolo, partner and head of sports law at LCA for Italy, every Olympics turns out a tiny bit different from the previous one, by sheer virtue of time. “Each edition brings along an incremental evolution, which naturally involves the legal function,” Venturi Ferriolo observes. “We’re now accustomed to seeing changes unfold across multiple areas, from the preparatory phase of the Games through the event itself and into the Games’ legacy. Even within the two-year transition between the Summer and Winter Games, we have witnessed numerous reforms. Marketing and communication are also undergoing significant transformation. Artificial intelligence and new technologies are materially reshaping the work of IP specialists.” Approximately two years ago, LCA created an ad-hoc team for the Games, focused on IP, labour, tax, and immigration, and advising stakeholders directly involved in the competition.
Amongst those, American media house NBC Universal, exclusive broadcaster of the event in the US, supported by an LCA lineup working under the lead of partner Giulio Vecchi, member of the IP, media, tech & data department, and including the firm sports team, as well as Giovanni Morgese for criminal profiling, Miriam Loro Piana for IP profiling, Giuseppe Bologna and Alessia Ajelli for immigration and labor law aspects.
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