RPB Legal launches Footlaw Club, a legal and tax advisory boutique for athletes, with Juan Miguel García Roca
Footlaw Club: the new Sports Law boutique from RPB Legal and former footballer Juan Miguel García Roca, based in Murcia.
RPB Legal has presented Footlaw Club, a project specialised in Sports Law born from the alliance between Antonio Ruiz Pérez-Bermúdez, founder and CEO of the Murcia firm, and lawyer and former footballer Juan Miguel García Roca. The boutique firm will offer legal and tax advice to athletes and their professional circle, with a team tasked with coordinating the different needs that arise during their careers, as reported by Lawyerpress on 3 November 2026.
The launch adds one more piece to the growing Spanish market of specialised legal boutiques, in this case at the intersection between sports law and the wealth and tax planning of professional athletes.
Six areas of work
Footlaw Club's activity is structured in six areas: review and negotiation of contracts with clubs, sponsors and federations; national and international taxation; structuring and exploitation of image rights; advice to representation agencies; incorporation and reorganisation of companies; and sports business development.
The project proposes coordinated advice to address the legal, tax and business implications of sporting activity. Its addressees include athletes, clubs, sports entities and professionals involved in managing their careers. "Sport has been part of RPB Legal since its beginnings. With Footlaw Club we go one step further: a team dedicated exclusively to the athlete, accompanying them throughout their career," says Antonio Ruiz Pérez-Bermúdez.
The proposal covers the complete cycle of an athlete's professional life: from negotiating the first professional contract to wealth reorganisation when the career ends.
From sporting practice to legal advice
Juan Miguel García Roca, founding partner of Footlaw Club, came through the Sevilla FC academy and went on to play for its reserve team, Sevilla Atlético. He has also been part of clubs such as Hércules CF and CD Badajoz. His career as a footballer brings the project a direct perspective on the professional decisions players face, especially in contract negotiation and team changes, which is added to his legal and tax specialisation.
"I know the dressing room from the inside and I know what worries a player when they sign a contract or change clubs. We want the athlete to focus on competing and leave their contracts, their taxation and their image in our hands," explains García Roca.
The legal business of professional sport
Advice to athletes has become notably more sophisticated in recent years. The career of a sports professional is short, intense and has concentrated income, which demands specific tax and wealth planning: structuring of image rights, contracts with clubs and sponsors, tax residence in international trajectories and protection of wealth for the post-retirement stage. Added to this are strictly sporting matters: transfers, disciplinary sanctions, representation contracts and litigation before federations and sports bodies.
Representation agencies, for their part, need continuous legal coverage in contract negotiation and in compliance with agent regulation. A boutique combining sports law and taxation responds to that integrated demand.
Athlete taxation, a minefield
The taxation of professional athletes has been one of the most active fronts of tax inspection in Spain over the last decade, with numerous high-profile proceedings over the assignment of image rights to instrumental companies. Administrative and judicial doctrine has gradually outlined the limits of the assignment of 85% of the income that personal income tax allows to be attributed to the assignee company, the substance requirements of the structures and the taxation of international transfers, where double taxation conventions and residence criteria come into play. For an athlete, the difference between a well and a badly designed structure is not only economic: it can be the difference between lawful planning and sanctioning proceedings with criminal implications. That a sports boutique integrates national and international taxation among its core areas responds exactly to that reality.
Contract and image: the heart of the advice
The first two areas announced by Footlaw Club —contracts with clubs, sponsors and federations, and image rights— concentrate the bulk of the economic value of a sporting career. The contract with the club regulates not only salary, but retention clauses, termination compensation, performance variables and image obligations; the sponsorship contract, in turn, requires reconciling the athlete's rights with those of their club and its official sponsors, a conflict of ownerships that is a habitual source of litigation. In that terrain, the dressing-room experience García Roca brings has a direct practical translation: knowing which clauses are really negotiated and which are liturgy.
Reinforcing RPB Legal's sports practice
The launch of Footlaw Club expands RPB Legal's commitment to Sports Law. Antonio Ruiz Pérez-Bermúdez founded the firm in 2015, after working in the legal departments of several business groups in the Region of Murcia. The firm carries out its activity in Sports and Entertainment Law, Business Law, e-commerce and public procurement, and the new initiative concentrates advice to athletes and their circle in a specialised project.
Footlaw Club will serve clients from RPB Legal's office in Murcia, located on calle Saavedra Fajardo. It will also participate as a collaborator in the ninth edition of the Costa Cálida Región de Murcia Sport Business Congress, scheduled for 5 November at the Teatro Circo in Murcia.
Representation agencies and companies: the business perimeter
The other three announced areas complete the project's business perimeter. Advice to representation agencies covers a regulated sector with growing demands —agent licences, limits on commissions, transparency duties towards the represented party— where continuous legal coverage has become standard. The incorporation and reorganisation of companies addresses the reality that the professional athlete is also, very soon, an entrepreneur: they structure their activity, their image and their investments through corporate vehicles that require design and corporate governance. And sports business development extends the service to projects born around the career: academies, facilities, own brands, investments in clubs or in sports assets.
The wave of specialised boutiques
Footlaw Club forms part of a clear current in the Spanish legal market: the creation of small, specialised firms, often driven by partners with careers at large firms or, as in this case, with direct sector knowledge. The choice of Murcia as headquarters places the project outside the Madrid-Barcelona axis, in a region with a relevant presence of professional sport, and follows the trend of new territorially anchored boutiques competing on specialisation and proximity. The market frequently records launches and reinforcement signings such as Natalia Gómez de Enterría at ILIA ETL GLOBAL or Remedios García at Toda & Nel-lo. For clients —athletes, in this case— the boutique offers specialisation and direct attention from the partners; for the sector, it is one more sign of competitive fragmentation into niches.
Frequently asked questions
What is Footlaw Club?
A boutique firm based in Murcia specialised in legal and tax advice for athletes, representation agencies and sports professionals, promoted by RPB Legal.
Who is behind the project?
Antonio Ruiz Pérez-Bermúdez, of RPB Legal, and Juan Miguel García Roca, lawyer and former footballer.
What services will it offer?
Comprehensive legal and tax advice for athletes, representation agencies and sports professionals.
Where is it based?
In Murcia.
When was it presented?
The presentation was reported on 3 November 2026.
Sources
Fuentes
- Source. Accessed 9 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
