Dispute Resolution

Anyone with standing can open a formal dispute. The submission form asks for parties involved, the relevant facts, supporting documents, and a classification: financial, sporting, administrative or conduct-related. The classification drives the routing rules — a sporting dispute about a refereeing decision goes one way, a financial dispute about licence fees goes another.

The escalation pathway is configured per tenant but follows a familiar shape: club first, then region or district, then national federation, then the continental body, and finally FIPJP for cases that cross borders or set new precedent. At each level the dispute is owned by a named handler with clear deadlines for acknowledgement, response and decision. Parties can see exactly where their case sits and what happens next.

Mediation is the default first attempt before formal adjudication. The system assigns a neutral mediator, opens a private workspace for the parties, sets a timeline, and records whether mediation succeeded, partially succeeded or failed. If mediation fails, the case is moved to the appropriate decision body. Decisions are documented with full rationale, citing the rules applied and the evidence weighed, and published — redacted where necessary — to the precedent database, which is searchable by classification, level and outcome.

Appeals are a first-class concept. Each decision lists the appeal window, the appeal body, and the grounds on which an appeal can be lodged. The same audit trail captures every step from initial submission to final decision, so a dispute decided at FIPJP level can be reconstructed years later in detail.