CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Gonzalo Bossart and Francisco Moya, Moya & Bossart
– national and foreign, natural and legal, private and public – throughout the national territory. Therefore, sports entities are also subject to this law. The aforementioned RNH is the most telling example due to the sensitive nature of the personal data under its protection.
exceptionally in cases of serious abuses that violate procedural public order or due process.
7. Employment Contracts and Rights 7.1 Sports-Related Employment Contracts Professional athletes in Chile are unambiguously employees. Estatuto Laboral del Futbolista Profesion - al (the Professional Footballers’ Labour Statute) was published on 25 April 2007 and entered into force on 1 June of that year. It was enacted as Law 20.178, which regulates the employment relationship of professional sportspeople and workers performing related activi - ties. The law covers not just footballers but anyone who is remunerated as a coach, technical assistant or any other person directly linked to the practice of the relevant sport. The Labour Code applies as back - ground law, with Law 20.178 providing a lex specialis overlay for the sector. The employment model is club-based, not central - ised. Each club is the employer and contracts play - ers individually – there is no league-wide or federa - tion-administered central player contract system of the kind sometimes seen in newer or lower-revenue sports leagues elsewhere. Salary Cap There are no formal salary caps in Chilean profes - sional football, and no equivalent mechanism appears to be in force across Chilean professional sports more broadly. No formal salary limit exists in Chile, though regulation or a budget ceiling has been discussed in order to achieve a competitive balance. So far, this has appeared difficult to achieve: larger clubs have no incentive to surrender their advantage. The Competition Tribunal ( Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia – TDLC) has noted the potential anti-competitive effects of multi-club ownership in Chilean football – a question that several European jurisdictions are also grappling with – though no defin - itive ruling has yet emerged on this point in Chile.
6. Dispute Resolution 6.1 Role of National Court Systems
In cases where the internal tribunals of sports organi - sations have jurisdiction over internal disputes, all internal remedies must be exhausted before the Chil- ean national courts can hear the matters in dispute. In Chile, certain matters fall under the exclusive juris - diction of national courts, such as criminal, labour and antitrust disputes, among others. Therefore, these matters cannot be submitted to any jurisdiction other than that of the competent national courts, even by express agreement between the parties involved. 6.2 ADR Mechanisms The most common alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms in Chile are conciliation, media - tion and arbitration, to which conflicts arising within sports can be submitted. Chilean legislation regulates these mechanisms in dif - ferent laws, depending on the subject matter. 6.3 Sanctions, Remedies and Challenges Enforcement of Decisions Involving Sports The power to enforce judicial decisions in Chile rests exclusively with the national courts. Therefore, if the internal mechanisms typically available to sports organisations to enforce their decisions – such as fines, restrictions or loss of membership rights, or sporting sanctions – fail, they must resort to the civil courts to ensure enforcement of the judgment. Regarding the possibility of appealing the decisions of the internal courts of sports organisations to external courts, this can only be done if expressly permitted by the relevant regulations of the organisation itself – or
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