Charles Russell Speechlys advises Fresh Air Festival on the Bangkok Century Cup 2022

Charles Russell Speechlys advised Fresh Air Festival on its contract negotiations with Manchester United and Liverpool Football Club, for the Clubs’ recent tour match in Bangkok, Thailand. 

Fresh Air Festival was the promoter for “The Match” of the Bangkok Century Cup 2022 which took place on 12 July, in front of over 50,000 live fans and a media audience in over 100 countries. Manchester United enjoyed a 4-0 victory in Erik ten Hag’s first match as the club’s manager. The event also featured a live performance by K pop idol, Jackson Wang.

It is estimated that the event stimulated the local economy by up to six Billion Thai Baht, whilst also highlighting Thailand as one of Asia's leading hubs for sports tourism and enhancing the country's image as a world-class destination to the over one billion fans of both clubs around the world.

The Charles Russell Speechlys team was led by Head of Sport Nic Couchman and sports lawyer Richard Davies. Charles Russell Speechlys worked closely with the in-house legal teams of both clubs.

Nic Couchman, Partner and Head of Sport at Charles Russell Speechlys comments:

"We are delighted to have been able to combine our legal capability and football sector experience to successfully deliver the legal aspects of this project for the team at Fresh Air Festival. Marrying the objectives of event promoters and major clubs, like Manchester United and Liverpool, is no easy task given their existing commercial programmes and the challenges and uncertainties posed by the pandemic. It is great that clubs are touring internationally again, after two years of cancellations and setbacks in the sports events world - the game generated great excitement and the local support for both clubs was fantastic”. 

Marcus Luer, Agent on behalf of Fresh Air Festival comments:

"The highly experienced sports-legal team at Charles Russell Speechlys enabled us to negotiate complex commercial agreements with two of the world's biggest football clubs and bring them both together for the match to Thailand for the first time ever. These negotiations required a creative and technically excellent legal approach and a strong understanding of the objectives and challenges in a Covid environment for the promoter and the requirements of major football clubs, which I am delighted to say Charles Russell Speechlys more than delivered."