CHILE Law and Practice Contributed by: Gonzalo Bossart and Francisco Moya, Moya & Bossart
7.2 Employer/Employee Rights Relationship Between Sports Governing Bodies and Athletes The relationship between sports governing bodies and player employment sits at an unusual legal inter - section in Chile. The clubs are the formal employers under Law 20.178 and the Labour Code ( Código del Trabajo ), but the ANFP – as the governing body – imposes rules that directly constrain what clubs may agree in their individual contracts with players. The ANFP represents a third party external to the employ - ment relationship between a club and its players, yet it exercises legally recognised powers that directly affect the clubs’ operations in several areas, includ - ing recruitment rules. This creates persistent tension: the ANFP’s regulatory authority can conflict with work - ers’ constitutional rights, and the Labour Directorate ( Dirección del Trabajo – DT) has shown increasing will - ingness to intervene when it does. Case 1: Deportes Melipilla – relegation as labour enforcement This case illustrates how the ANFP uses its internal disciplinary structure as a mechanism to enforce employment obligations, with direct sporting conse - quences. Deportes Melipilla S.A.D.P. was sanctioned by the ANFP’s Disciplinary Tribunal with relegation at the end of the second division ( Segunda División ) tournament for the 2025 season. The sanction was based on a report from the ANFP’s financial control unit finding that the club had failed to prove it had paid wages and social security contributions for November 2025 in respect of four players. The club appealed to the Second Chamber of the Disciplinary Tribunal, which upheld the relegation on the basis that the infraction had occurred in the 2025 season and the sanction should therefore apply in that same season. This was the second time Melipilla had faced this kind of consequence. In 2024, it had also been the sub - ject of a complaint by rival club Deportes Concep - ción regarding unpaid labour taxes after the promotion playoff – a dispute that left the question of which club would actually be promoted unresolved for months.
Case 2: the sub-23 age restriction and the 2025 player strike This is the most significant labour dispute in Chilean football in recent years, and its resolution in early 2025 reshaped the governance relationship between the ANFP and the Chilean Professional Footballers’ Union ( Sindicato de Futbolistas Profesionales de Chile – SIFUP). In December 2024, the ANFP’s Council of Club Presi - dents voted to restructure the Segunda División so that clubs could only field players under 23 years of age. The stated rationale was developing domestic talent and easing financial pressures on smaller clubs. SIFUP immediately opposed the measure and, in ear - ly January 2025, declared an indefinite strike. SIFUP took the case to the DT, which ruled that setting an age limit of this kind was illegal and unconstitutional. The DT’s formal opinion was unequivocal: it was not legally proper to enter into agreements with labour effects on third parties that prohibited or restricted the hiring of workers solely on the basis of their age, since this expressly curtailed those workers’ constitutional freedom of labour — one of the explicitly prohibited grounds of discrimination under Article 2 of the Códi - go del Trabajo . The dispute exposed a structural problem that sports lawyers had flagged for years: rules created by an external body like the ANFP that affect workers’ con - stitutional rights raise serious questions about their validity within Chilean labour law, as well as the extent to which the DT may intervene in a private associa - tion’s regulatory decisions. The ANFP initially resisted, arguing that government intervention in its sporting regulations risked Fédération Internationale de Foot- ball Association (FIFA; International Federation of Association Football) sanctions for third-party inter - ference. The main issues resolved were: • the removal of any age restriction in the Segunda División • a guarantee that players who suffer serious injuries continue to receive treatment and remuneration
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