Rizespor AS v. Ronaldo César Mendes de Medeiros & FIFA

Turkish club Rizespor disputed how much it actually owed player Ronaldo Mendes under his employment contract, and separately challenged a formal warning FIFA had issued against it. In reaching its decision, the CAS panel applied a general principle of contract interpretation: that the true and common intention of the parties must be ascertained without dwelling on inexact expressions either side may have used, in error or otherwise, and that a contract's content must be construed according to the parties' actual subjective will rather than its literal wording alone.

Applying that approach to the remuneration dispute, the panel amended the FIFA DRC's decision on the compensation calculation, partially upholding Rizespor's appeal on that point. On the separate sanction issue, the panel's reasoning specifically addressed whether the club's contract wording (specifying pay in "net" terms) meant it bore responsibility for the player's tax liability, and whether a formal warning was a proportionate response to the underlying Article 12bis breach.

The appeal was partially upheld only on the compensation calculation, with costs split 70% to the club and 30% to the player, and Rizespor ordered to pay the player a further CHF 3,000 — this outcome confirmed directly against the FIFA Quarterly Report's own summary of the award.