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The recruitment of foreign athletes and coaches within Portuguese professional sport raises specific legal challenges, particularly during transfer and registration periods. Although the employment relationship is itself a requirement for obtaining a residence permit, formalizing the contract is not enough for the professional to be able to compete \u2013 the immigration procedure must also be completed with the effective granting of the residence permit. The usual processing times of Portuguese consular services and immigration authorities, often lengthy, prove incompatible with the urgency and unpredictability inherent to the competitive calendar.<\/p>\n
It was precisely in this context, and in order to address this temporal disconnect, that on 24 July 2024 a Streamlining Protocol was signed between the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), the Border and Foreigners Coordination Unit (UCFE), the Portuguese Football Federation, the Portuguese Basketball Federation, the Portuguese Handball Federation, the Portuguese Roller Sports Federation, the Portuguese Volleyball Federation and the Portuguese Professional Football League.<\/p>\n
The Protocol seeks to address a difficulty long identified by Portuguese clubs: the incompatibility between the decision-making times of immigration procedures and the extremely short deadlines of sports transfer and registration windows.<\/p>\n
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This mechanism is not an entirely new development. Already in 2013 and 2015, the then Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) had established specific protocols for football players, recognizing the need for privileged processing channels. However, those instruments were confined to a single sport and framed within an institutional architecture that has since been superseded.<\/p>\n
The 2024 Protocol reflects two significant changes: on the one hand, the reorganization of the immigration system carried out by Law No. 73\/2021, of 12 November, which abolished SEF and created AIMA; on the other hand, the expansion of its personal scope to multiple team sports, going beyond the exclusivity of football.<\/p>\n
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The Protocol is based on the legal mechanism set out in Article 123(1)(c) of Law No. 23\/2007, of 4 July, which allows, upon a proposal from AIMA\u2019s executive board or on the initiative of the Government member responsible for migration, the exceptional granting of a temporary residence permit to foreign nationals on grounds of public interest, arising from the exercise of a relevant activity in the field of sport.<\/p>\n
In this context, professional sporting activity is recognized as a matter of significant public interest, given its social and economic impact and the international visibility it provides the country. Such a framework justifies the adoption of specific mechanisms to facilitate the entry and stay in Portugal of professionals in the sector, while also helping to strengthen the national and international competitiveness of Portuguese sport.<\/p>\n
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The instrument pursues a dual purpose:<\/p>\n
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To benefit from the simplified procedure, professional athletes and coaches must simultaneously satisfy three cumulative requirements:<\/p>\n
In the specific case of competitions organized by the FPF (Portuguese Football Federation), the protocol applies to athletes and coaches under an employment contract with clubs participating in Liga 3, Liga BPI, Liga Placard and the First Division of Women\u2019s Futsal.<\/p>\n
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AIMA undertakes obligations that are particularly significant from a practical standpoint:<\/p>\n
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UCFE undertakes to issue, within a timeframe of no more than two days, the legally required security opinions within the same 2 working-day period, ensuring that the security component does not constitute a procedural bottleneck.<\/p>\n
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The Federations and the League take on a central intermediary role:<\/p>\n
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Although it represents a significant advance for the sports sector, the Protocol does not eliminate all the constraints associated with the international recruitment of athletes and coaches.<\/p>\n
First of all, its application depends on the cumulative verification of the legal requirements and the submission of a duly completed application. In practice, delays in obtaining documentation from abroad, difficulties in the timely formalization of contractual relationships, or coordination failures between clubs, agents and federations may jeopardize recourse to this regime.<\/p>\n
In addition, its scope of application is limited to the sports and competitions covered by the signatory entities and does not automatically extend to other areas of professional sport.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding these limitations, the practical application of the Protocol remains constrained by bottlenecks inherent to the Portuguese immigration system itself, which should be identified.<\/p>\n
First of all, it should be noted that the Protocol applies to the residence permit application, leaving out any provision for streamlining mechanisms to expedite the visa application that the athlete or coach often needs in order to legally enter national territory. This step is, in itself, one of the most difficult stages of the relocation process, owing to the constraints associated with the operation of consulates.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the commitment to a decision within two working days undertaken by AIMA and UCFE, although a notable advance, presupposes the submission of a fully completed application. Practice shows, however, that the timely gathering of all required documentation is, in itself, one of the main obstacles. Obtaining certificates and documents from third countries, the need for apostille or consular legalization, certified translation, and the requirement for prior criminal record checks with foreign authorities whose response times vary, are factors that frequently prevent the application from being submitted within the transfer windows. In other words, the Protocol speeds up the decision, but does not resolve the upstream bottleneck: the preparation of the file.<\/p>\n
Thirdly, the temporal concentration of applications during registration and transfer windows generates volume pressures that can test the operational capacity of the entities involved. In a market where multiple clubs, from different sports, simultaneously seek to regularize foreign professionals within very short deadlines, the consistent maintenance of the two-working-day deadline depends on human resources and infrastructure that do not always keep pace with peaks in demand. The experience of previous protocols, limited to football, suggests that the extension to five team sports will significantly increase the number of applications submitted, requiring AIMA and UCFE to have a scaling capacity that has not yet been tested in practice.<\/p>\n
Fourthly, the Protocol resolves the administrative decision stage but does not eliminate the need for an in-person appointment for identity verification and biometric data collection. The interval between notification of the granting of the residence permit and the actual in-person appointment can, in practice, be considerably prolonged, especially during periods of higher demand at AIMA services. Although the professional may compete after notification of the grant, the absence of the physical residence document creates practical difficulties in daily life – from opening bank accounts to entering into lease agreements, as well as accessing public services – which may affect the effective integration of the athlete or coach and their family.<\/p>\n
Finally, the Protocol focuses on the regularization of the professional themselves, without providing equivalent mechanisms for their family members. The relocation of an athlete or coach to Portugal is rarely limited to the individual alone. The need to obtain residence permits for spouses and minor children, access to the national health system, and enrollment in educational institutions are concrete concerns that, when not adequately addressed, can hinder the professional\u2019s adaptation and, consequently, their sporting performance. Family members thus remain subject to the general processing times of immigration procedures – precisely the same time frames that the Protocol acknowledges as incompatible with the needs of the sector – creating an asymmetry that may act as a deterrent to attracting international talent to Portugal.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding these limitations, the 2024 Protocol represents a significant step in adapting the Portuguese immigration regime to the specific needs of professional sport, by creating a faster and more predictable mechanism for regularizing foreign athletes and coaches. The reduction in response times is particularly relevant in a sector marked by short transfer windows, high international mobility, and the need for the immediate integration of professionals into competitions.<\/p>\n
Its effectiveness will, however, depend on the ability of the entities involved to ensure consistent application of the established procedures and efficient coordination among all stakeholders. Upcoming sports seasons will make it possible to assess to what extent this model of cooperation can sustainably respond to the challenges of an increasingly globalized and competitive sector.<\/p>\n
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By Ricardo Cardoso<\/a> and Carlos Ferreira Vaz<\/a>, Practice Area – Sports, Fashion and Entertainment<\/a>, and Bruna Casagrande<\/a> and Beatriz Sousa<\/a>, Practice Area – Immigration & Citizenship<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Background The recruitment of foreign athletes and coaches within Portuguese professional sport raises specific legal challenges, particularly during transfer and registration periods. Although the employment relationship is itself a requirement for obtaining a residence permit, formalizing the contract is not enough for the professional to be able to compete \u2013 the immigration procedure must…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[153,188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flash-alert-2","category-news-media-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20166,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20161\/revisions\/20166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcecija.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}