Panini had the right to market vignettes with the photo of Jérémy Pied in his famous albums. Yes and without dispute, replies the Paris Court of Appeal. The latter has dismissed the former footballer from Lille, Lyon and Nice. This last winner partially at first instance with three other ex or current professional players, was the only one to have decided to launch a new judicial round against the publisher of the publisher and the company Promofoot, a company of the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP). Demanding more than 357,000 euros instead of the 2,000 initials.
In their judgment of Wednesday, June 25, consulted by Le Parisien-today in France, the three magistrates in charge of the file consider that in no case the former defender has free of charge from the professional football charter, which gives his club the possibility of using his image “provided that at least 5 players of the workforce are used in a rigorously identical manner”. Either as in the case of Panini albums implicated, underlines the court.
“It should be observed that the disputed vignettes representing the so -called individually calm are intended only to integrate within the framework of a global album representing the teams of players. It is therefore not an individual image transmission ”, continues it, believing that the argument of a separate sale of the stickers representing Jérémy Pied does not hold.
A missing document paid to the procedure
But what breaks the first judgment is not here. Panini and Promofoot had been sentenced because a document was missing transferring the rights to use the union players to its commercial company. A voluntary omission at first instance, corrected by a piece of December 20, 2024 which demonstrates that these rights have been given “since the origin of the company”.
The court therefore decided to sweep all the requests of the former player. Jérémy Pied is also ordered to pay 5,000 euros, as procedure costs, in Panini and UNFP.
“We are very happy that the Court of Appeal has devoted the full model of collective management of the image of the players set up by the professional football charter,” underlines the lawyer of the UNFP, Me Emmanuel Ronco. This allows UNFP, and by extension to its new promo-foot-footage subsidiary, to work for an egalitarian and united exploitation of the players’ image, for the benefit of the entire football ecosystem. »»
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