Football: Hundreds of claims in last 12 years
As the country prepares for this weekend’s World Cup clash, lawyers have another reason to celebrate the beautiful game – research shows that the Football Association is among the 50 most litigious parties in the High Court in recent times and that sports generally is good business for litigators.
English football’s governing body has been involved in more than 300 claims since 2014, most of them relating to intellectual property enforcement.
This might have pleased Ebenezer Cobb Morley, the solicitor who had the idea to form an organisation that became the FA in 1863. He was its first secretary and also drafted the first laws of the game.
The FA’s total of 300 cases compared to the 350 claims filed in the High Court over the last 12 years involving football clubs.
Chelsea was a party in 26 claims, twice as many as its nearest rival Manchester City. Chelsea’s appearances were split evenly between claimant and defendant, while Manchester City appeared mainly as a defendant.
Litigation analytics platform Solomonic found that football was “by some distance” the most litigious sport at the High Court this decade, followed by motorsport, horse racing and equestrian events, rugby, sailing and yacht racing, and boxing.
The FA was the claimant in 97% of its 300 cases, with “the vast majority relating to intellectual property enforcement – particularly actions against individuals and businesses for copyright infringement and the unauthorised broadcasting of live matches”.
The activity peaked in 2015, when 109 claims were filed, “although the volume has reduced considerably in more recent years”.
For the football clubs, the years between 2018 and 2020 were “particularly active”, with Chelsea alone issuing nine claims against named individuals, which appeared to relate mainly to ticket touting.
London firm Bolt Burdon Kemp was responsible for half the claims issued in 2018, “largely targeting” Chelsea, Leicester City and Manchester City.
“Since then, annual volumes have stabilised, with an average of around 19 claims per year between 2021 and 2025.”
There were more than 70 actions involving football clubs in the Insolvency and Companies List from 2019, a year which marked a “particular peak”, with HM Revenue & Customs responsible for 75% of cases.
Researchers said these actions were primarily issuing winding-up petitions, probably to pursue unpaid debts rather than necessarily forcing liquidation.
Activity dipped during Covid in 2020 and 2021 before rising steadily again from 2022, “reflecting growing financial pressures across the game”.
After Chelsea and Manchester City, the most litigious football clubs were Cardiff City, Liverpool and West Ham.
Since 2020, researchers said they had recorded over 135 sport-related disputes, with volumes rising steadily year-on-year for five years. Claims increased from six in 2020 to a peak of 40 in 2024, before dipping in 2025.
A fifth of sports litigation cases (19%) involved personal injury, while 17% were handled by the Commercial Court and a similar proportion by the King’s Bench.
Nine of the post-2020 cases were in the media and communications list, highlighting “reputational issues, including defamation”, with eight in the intellectual property list.
Researchers added: “While football dominates the litigation landscape, the wider picture points to a sport sector where commercial complexity and financial pressure are driving a steady rise in disputes.”
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