They Think It’s All Over: Court of Appeal Gives Final Decision in FIFA Club World Cup Licensing Dispute

08/08/25

The Court of Appeal has today handed down judgment in Coupang, Corp v DAZN Limited [2025] EWCA Civ 1083, giving its full reasons for finding that Coupang (which provides a market-leading streaming service in South Korea) had concluded a licence to broadcast the FIFA Club World Cup in South Korea. The Court of Appeal had given its decision at the conclusion of the one-day expedited appeal hearing on 6 June 2025, with reasons to follow, because the Club World Cup was due to begin on 14 June.

DAZN holds the global broadcast rights for the FIFA Club World Cup. Interest in this year’s event was high in South Korea, as a local team (Ulsan HD) were due to compete.

During January-February 2025 DAZN’s representatives negotiated a sub-licence with Coupang for the right to broadcast the Club World Cup in South Korea, on a ‘co-exclusive’ basis with DAZN. Coupang considered that a binding contract had been concluded. DAZN disagreed, asserting that it had only reached a non-binding agreement in principle. DAZN therefore asserted that it was entitled to accept a higher offer from a competitor.

Coupang brought a claim in the Commercial Court in England, leading to an expedited trial before HHJ Pelling KC, who gave judgment for Coupang on 20 May 2025. He granted a declaration that a binding contract had been concluded, an order for specific performance requiring DAZN to provide the relevant broadcast feed to Coupang, and an injunction preventing DAZN from broadcasting the competition in South Korea through third party platforms or channels. DAZN was permitted to broadcast the event on its own app, reflecting its ‘co-exclusive’ rights.

DAZN sought, and received, permission to appeal. It first sought to reverse the Court’s finding that a contract had been formed, arguing that any agreement disclosed by the parties’ communications was necessarily subject to execution of a formal written document. It also argued that, in any event, the Commercial Court should not have granted an injunction preventing the event from being streamed by DAZN on its YouTube channel.

The appeal was dismissed on its entirety. Popplewell LJ, with whom Arnold and Newey LJJ agreed, gave the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the contract formation issue (Grounds 1-3). He held that, construing the parties’ communications as a whole, they had clearly “reached an agreement by which they intended to be immediately and legally bound by the exchange of the emails in question”. Key factors in this decision included that the parties had (i) had negotiated and settled key terms in advance via WhatsApp, (ii) consciously escalated the formality of their communications by moving from WhatsApp to email for the finalisation of the agreement, (iii) used language consistent with offer and acceptance in the key email exchange, and (iv) initially treated each other as being legally bound by their agreement: see [16]-[19]. Popplewell LJ further noted that it was “not necessary” to engage with the threshold for interfering with a lower court’s evaluative assessment, because he had “reached the same conclusion as the Judge on the written materials”: [27].

Arnold LJ, with whom Popplewell and Newey LJJ agreed, gave judgment on the injunction issue (Grounds 4-5). He held that DAZN had failed to show the injunction was overinclusive, and that the lower court had been entitled to treat an upload of the tournament feed onto YouTube as being a breach of the co-exclusivity agreed by the parties: see [44]-[50]. He rejected DAZN’s argument that broadcasting the event on its own ‘channel’ on YouTube was equivalent to DAZN broadcasting the event via its own app. A broadcast on YouTube was, in effect, a broadcast via a third party platform, which would have undermined the value of Coupang’s rights. It did not fall within the concept of a ‘co-exclusive’ licence.

Apart from ensuring that the people of South Korea were able to enjoy the FIFA Club World Cup, the decision is significant in holding that (i) major sports rights can, on appropriate facts, be sub-licensed via informal agreements, without any formal contract being signed, and (ii) broadcast by a rights-holder through a third party platform such as YouTube – even via a branded ‘channel’ within that platform – will not necessarily be treated as equivalent to broadcast via the rights-holder’s own app or platform.

The Court of Appeal judgment is here.