Image rights: a complaint from seven former players against the UNFP & Panini dismissed

The complaint filed in September 2024 by seven former professional football players (including Fabrice Pancrate, Jimmy Briand and Jérémy Pied) against the UNFP and Panini for "swindling and active corruption of a private agent" has been dismissed by the Paris public prosecutor's office "on the grounds that no criminal offence appeared to have been committed," the public prosecutor's office told AFP on 12/11/2024.

The dispute between the Italian manufacturer of collectible cards and stickers and the union and these seven players, who are contesting the use of their image in the Panini sticker albums, "had already been brought before the civil courts", as the Paris public prosecutor's office pointed out. In October 2021, four footballers (Vincent Bessat, Jérémy Pied, Jérémy Doku and Bruno Ecuele Manga) took the two entities to court, complaining that the Union had transferred their image rights to Panini.

While the Judicial Court of Paris found in favour of the UNFP and its partner in terms of their legitimacy to use the players' collective image rights, it did not consider the…