German Football Association (Deutscher Fußball Bund, DFB) – Court Ruling (Germany, 2021)

The German Football Association (DFB) (controller) has issued a regulation for player agents. Player agents are consultants for professional footballers, e.g. for the arrangement of club transfers. The player agent regulation contains a provision according to which players or football clubs are obliged to disclose details of the remuneration of player agent services to the DFB or similar bodies. A director of a player agency (data subject) claimed injunctive relief against this disclosure requirement under [https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__1004.html §§ 1004,] [https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__823.html 823 German Civil Code] (BGB) in conjunction with Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. In their opinion, the disclosure requirement violates Article 6 GDPR. The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (OLG Frankfurt) balanced the interests of the parties pursuant to Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. It found that, within the framework of the balancing of interests of Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, the data subject's interests lie in the confidentiality of the requested data. On the side of the controller, who issues the regulations, the legitimate interest of transparency and traceability of arrangements of player transfers is pursued in order to exclude that sports operations are not dominated by unjustified financial interests of third parties. The OLG Frankfurt concluded that the interests of the defendant prevail.