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England - London • TMT (technology, media and telecoms)
3

Sport

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Muckle LLP

More information
Muckle LLP boasts a niche practice advising sporting organisations and governing bodies on club structures, tax status, and complex facilities schemes. Much of the firm’s work is project-driven, often advising on large-scale grassroots sport and infrastructure projects. Recent examples of this include advising The Football Foundation on its £200m Parklife facilities project, which aimed to introduce new 3G pitches across the country. The firm also remains an adviser to The FA on its Club Programme, supporting the growth of grassroots football through a package of legal and operational support to hundreds of community clubs. Chris Hook has deep expertise in the community sports sector, whilst his co-head, Tony McPhillips, is a sports and employment law expert. Samantha Pritchard is experienced in charity law.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘Specialists in football governance.’

  • ‘Very approachable and helpful, explained things clearly in an easy-to-understand way.’

  • ‘Responsive at short notice, engaged and proactive in their dialogue with us - business partnering effectively.'

  • ‘The staff are knowledgeable and supportive, they are experts when it comes to sports governance, club disputes. Muckle are pragmatic, supportive and work collaboratively both to a governing body and the community clubs.' 

  • ‘Alison in particular is extremely helpful, supportive and empathetic. She understands our organisation and is very easy to work with; her professional, yet friendly manner makes everything understandable in layman's terms. Tony is a huge asset to the organisation and has a strong leadership of his team. He guides us through tricky situations, always with organisation-specific knowledge and appropriate legal references.’

  • ‘A friendly and approachable team who helped us navigate the complexities of the law relating to unincorporated sporting associations and companies limited by guarantee. As a charity, we had limited funds available for legal advice, so the lawyers took this on board and provided us with the advice we needed in the most economical, but also thorough, way possible.’

Key clients

  • The Football Association
  • England Athletics
  • parkrun Global
  • Arsenal Foundation
  • The EFL Trust
  • The Premier League Charitable Fund
  • Sport England
  • The Rugby Players’ Association
  • British Wheelchair Basketball
  • British Skydiving
  • British Cycling
  • The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA)

Practice head

Tony McPhillips; Chris Hook

Other key lawyers

Samantha Pritchard; Louise Duffy; George Festing; Alison Walton