The dispute has been going on for two years. There is still no agreement. Now the German association is appealing to court.
Biathlete Franziska Preuß and Stefan Schwarzbach from DSV.
imago images/CEPix
In the dispute over marketing rights, the German Ski Association has taken the world association FIS to court. The reason is the change to the FIS competition rules, which from DSV’s point of view are a clear violation of German and European competition and antitrust law. “That’s why we decided a few months ago to apply for an interim injunction at the Munich Regional Court to protect our property rights,” said DSV board member Stefan Schwarzbach German press agency. They had that South German newspaper and BR24 reported.
The Austrian association is also taking this route. A decision is due to be announced by the Munich District Court in mid-October. The proceedings in Austria were postponed until the end of November.
Agreement or further confrontation?
The point of contention is marketing; until now, the national ski associations have marketed their races themselves. But the controversial FIS President Johan Eliasch wants the rights to be marketed centrally from the 2025/26 season in order to open up new markets, for example in the USA, China and Saudi Arabia. The dispute has now been going on for over two years.
“According to unanimous opinion and under applicable German law, the media and marketing rights for the World Cup events in Germany belong to the DSV and its local organizational partners,” said Schwarzbach. Rights ownership has always been an integral and explicit part of the competition rules.
In principle, the DSV and the other large national ski associations are still interested in a “sensible solution for all sides”. Recently there has been some progress in terms of content. “That’s why we actually hoped that the FIS Council would withdraw this rule change at its meeting in Zurich in order to bring the centralization process of international media rights to the finish line. We can’t really understand why this didn’t happen despite the announcement,” said Schwarzbach .
