Jörg Vollmüller

Jörg Vollmüller is a partner at MV Sports Consulting AG. He has been working as a commercial lawyer in the sports industry for over 20 years, both as a corporate lawyer and in various management positions at FIFA.

As former FIFA Director Operational Legal, Jörg Vollmüller was responsible for the legal management of the entire operational and commercial business of world football’s governing body for a period of 12 years. He was heavily involved in FIFA’s day-to-day business as well as the planning, organisation and implementation of all FIFA events and their global marketing. In addition to his legal skills, Jörg Vollmüller therefore has immense operational and commercial knowledge and takes a holistic approach with a clear operational orientation in all his duties.

Jörg Vollmüller was responsible for the legal planning of FIFA’s commercial programme and its successful implementation in connection with the 2010, 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups. His responsibilities included the areas of sponsorship, licensing, media rights, digitalisation, ticketing, hospitality and accommodation, as well as the management of all competition law issues associated with these areas of activity and the related tax planning. He was also responsible for building and managing FIFA’s global IP portfolio of over 14,000 globally registered trademarks, domain names and design registrations. Jörg Vollmüller also led the planning and successful implementation of the global rights protection and ticketing enforcement programmes for the 2010, 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups.

As part of the planning, implementation and realisation of the 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups, Jörg Vollmüller was responsible for the legal support and acted as FIFA’s lead negotiator with the local governments in connection with the implementation of the state guarantees granted to FIFA in Brazil, Russia and Qatar. Jörg Vollmüller was the driving force in the cross-divisional FIFA project teams for the overall revision of the bid and organisation concept for the FIFA World Cup. He drafted all contract documents for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups (organised under the old business model), the 2026 FIFA World Cup (to be organised under the new business model) and all other FIFA events organised under different business models (e.g. FIFA Women’s World Cup, FIFA eWorld Cup, various FIFA youth competitions, The Best FIFA Football Awards & the FIFA Congress). Jörg Vollmüller is the author of FIFA’s revised concept for the necessary support from governments and other public authorities in the countries hosting FIFA events. He also developed FIFA’s first event-specific human rights policy, a project in which he worked closely with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Harvard University.

Given his extensive experience in the operational business of world football’s governing body and in event management, FIFA appointed Jörg Vollmüller as a member of the Board of Directors of the FIFA subsidiaries for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and as a member of the FIFA/LOC Management Board for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cups. Due to his outstanding expertise in the ticketing business, Jörg Vollmüller was also appointed to the Board of Directors of FIFA Ticketing AG. He is the author of all contracts, regulations and other contractual documents for the worldwide sale of tickets for the FIFA World Cup, including a comprehensive compliance model for the use and management of FIFA’s entire ticket inventory. Jörg Vollmüller oversaw the development and implementation of FIFA’s global ticketing enforcement.

Jörg Vollmüller represented FIFA for many years in the “Sports Rights Owner Coalition” and at the “Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF)” of the IOC. He was a lecturer on the FIFA Master’s programme “Management, Law and Humanities of Sport”, which is organised by the International Centre for Sport Studies (CIES).

Before joining FIFA, Jörg Vollmüller served as deputy head of the legal department at SPORTFIVE GmbH & Co. KG (formerly UFA Sports GmbH and Lagardère Sports Germany) for seven years. Here he acquired profound knowledge in the entire range of in-house legal services in the field of sports marketing, including the acquisition and sale of media, advertising and sponsorship rights to various sporting events, the worldwide sale of media rights to the Italian Serie A as well as several overall marketing agreements with national football associations and German Bundesliga football clubs.

Jörg Vollmüller studied law at the Universities of Padua (Italy) and Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), where he graduated in 1997. He was licensed to practise law in Germany in 2000.

Jörg Vollmüller offers services in German, English, Italian, Dutch and French.