Does Qualifying for a Tournament Preliminary Round Trigger a Transfer Agreement’s Qualification Clause?

Qualifying for an international club tournament is a significant accomplishment for every soccer organization. So significant that many transfer agreements between clubs structure conditional fees around achieving this task. While some football traditionalists might view certain early stages of tournaments as simply pre-qualification rounds for the main stage, at what point, if any, can preliminary stages of a tournament be considered not actually qualifying for the proper tournament?

This question became a pivotal issue in CAS 2025A11797 Sport Club Corinthians Paulista v. Philadelphia Union & FIFA, a case decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in June 2026.

The Transfer Agreement
José Andrés Martínez Torres, or just José Martínez as shortened by FotMob, made the jump to Philadelphia Union in January 2020 for a €295k transfer fee from Venezuelan side Zulia FC. Entering the league at the prime age of 25, Martínez’s MLS career showed promise from the moment he hit the pitch. His three full seasons with the Union consistently produced above-average FotMob ratings, never dropping below 7.3 in any season.

As he approached the ripe age of 30 and his contract with the Union began to wind down, Martínez became a player who needed to be moved if Philadelphia wanted any return on one of its regular starters. On August 15, 2024, 16 games into the MLS season, with a noticeable but not glaring reduction in production, the Union decided to accept Corinthians' offer for Martínez, which was €1.2M less than his expected market value. The defensive midfielder’s drop in production the following two seasons seemed to warrant this discounted price.

In his transfer agreement executed for his permanent transfer from Union to Corinthians, the parties agreed to the following clause regarding a conditional payment to Philadelphia if Corinthians qualified for the Copa Libertadores:

“3.1. One Hundred Thousand And No/100 Dollars (U.S. $100,000.00), without any deductions for taxes or otherwise except for a Five Percent (5%) withholding by the Club pursuant to Section “Solidarity and Training Compensation” below, in the event the Club qualifies for Copa Libertadores, which shall be payable on or before January 31 of the year following the year in which the condition was fulfilled.”

As Corinthians’ 2024 campaign approached its conclusion, it became apparent that seventh place in Brasil’s Serie A would be enough to qualify for a Copa Libertadores spot, thanks to tournament wins by teams situated above them in the table. Interestingly, Martìnez was not highly featured in these games because of a bevy of events - a national team injury scare, intense FIFA international travel, and tactical competition as the manager adjusted his midfield.

Forced to enter the Copa Libertadores in the second round of qualification stages because of their final league position, Corinthians didn’t look like they truly belonged, needing an 89th-minute goal in the second leg of its tie against Universidad Central just to advance. Despite being one of their top performers in the two games against Universidad Central, Martinez was not featured in the first leg of Corinthians match against Barcelona SC in the next round, a game they lost 3-0. A top performance by Martinez in the second leg wasn’t enough to overcome this aggregate hole, knocking Corinthians out of the Copa Libertadores before reaching the group stage.

The Intent of a Tournament Qualification Clause
As the sting of the early-stage departure from the Copa Libertadores settled in, Corinthians realized that certain qualification clauses might have been triggered on Martinez’s contract - clauses that they probably thought did not truly have a chance of being met considering the team’s downward trend in seasonal points when the transfer agreement was signed. Their failure to reach the “main stages” of the Libertadores forced Corinthians to come up with an audacious argument when Philadelphia requested payment for the fees from this clause: that Martinez’s qualification clause in his transfer agreement was not satisfied because they only made the preliminary stages of the tournament, not the actual tournament.

Corinthians argued that this condition did not materialize because they were only allowed to participate in a tournament known as “pre-Libertadores”, which serves as a qualifying phase for the group stage of the Copa Libertadores. They contended that the purpose of the Conditional Fee was for Union to share in the financial benefits that they would accrue from qualifying to the group stage of the Copa Libertadores. Since Corinthians failed to reach the group stage, the expected benefits from this portion of the tournament did not materialize, therefore negating the need to pay an additional amount to Union.

As you can imagine, Philadelphia Union did not take this interpretation of Martínez’s tournament qualification clause very well. On April 3, 2025, the Union filed a claim with the FIFA Players' Status Chamber (PSC) seeking full payment, interest, and disciplinary sanctions. The FIFA PSC ruled in favor of Philadelphia Union, ordering Corinthians to pay:

• $1,425,000 in outstanding fees (after deducting 5% for solidarity contributions) plus 15% annual interest.
• A $75,000 fine to FIFA (citing repeat default behavior) and $25,000 in procedural costs.
• A transfer ban of up to three consecutive windows if unpaid within 45 days.

Corinthians appealed to the CAS, asking to set aside the full accelerated payment, the $100,000 bonus, and the $75,000 FIFA fine, citing financial distress and claiming the acceleration clause and fine were excessive.

Philadelphia argued that there were no specifications of what stage of the competition Corinthians must reach for the condition to be met under clause 3.1 of the Transfer Agreement. Moreover, Corinthians acknowledged it had qualified for the Copa Libertadores, not the “pre-stages”, through various social media posts. Union doesn’t dispute that the team did not progress to the group stages of the 2025 Copa Libertadores, but contends that their failure has no impact on its entitlement to the conditional compensation. They argue that there can be no doubt that Corinthians qualified for and competed in the 2025 Copa Libertadores, rendering any argument regarding the supposed financial benefits of reaching the group stages irrelevant. If Corinthians wanted to classify a specific stage of the tournament as the qualifier, they were free to negotiate this condition into the Transfer Agreement.

The CAS court agreed with Philadelphia, pointing to how the tournament organizers define the tournament in the manual issued by CONMEBOL, the governing body of football in South America, and organizer of the Copa Libertadores tournament, titled “Format of the Competition.” It defined the competition as follows:

2.1 Format of the competition
The South American Football Confederation annually organizes the CONMEBOL Libertadores.
(…)
The tournament will be played in 3 phases:
➢ Preliminary Phase: Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3;
➢ Group Phase;
➢ Final Phase: Round of Sixteen, Quarterfinals, Semifinal and Final.
(…)”

Contrary to Corinthians’ assertion, there was no evidence of the existence of a separate tournament named “pre-Libertadores” comprising qualifying stages that fed into the proper tournament. Therefore, CAS surmised that it was “unquestionable that [Corinthians] qualified for the 2025 edition of the Copa Libertadores”, and that their non-qualification for the Group Phase of the tournament had no bearing on the fulfillment of the qualification condition. The Corinthians participation at any phase of the tournament was enough to trigger Martinez’s Conditional Fee, especially considering they self-acknowledged their participation in the Copa Libertadores publicly.

The Final Takeaway
Tournament qualification clauses in player transfer agreements should not be left to the imagination of the beholder. If one side wishes to establish that their team must make a specific phase of a tournament, it must be explicitly stated in the clause so that the fee only triggers once that phase of the overall tournament is met.