Sustainability as a Condition for Competition: The Legal Enforceability of ESG Criteria in UEFA and FIFA Club Licensing Frameworks

This thesis analyses whether ESG and sustainability requirements can operate as legally enforceable conditions for participation in UEFA and FIFA competitions. It examines UEFA’s Club Licensing and Financial Sustainability Regulations, UEFA’s Football Sustainability Strategy 2030, FIFA’s sustainability commitments, and the German DFL model as a comparative benchmark for mandatory sustainability licensing. The thesis argues that, while ESG obligations are increasingly present in football governance, the current UEFA and FIFA frameworks remain too imprecise and largely soft-law oriented to justify exclusion from competition on sustainability grounds.

Through Swiss association law, lex sportiva, CAS jurisprudence and greenwashing-related regulatory developments such as the CSRD, the thesis concludes that ESG-based eligibility rules are legally possible in principle, but would require clearer standards, independent verification, graduated sanctions and stronger procedural safeguards to withstand legal scrutiny.