After two years of litigation, the legal fees incurred by Royal AM in their contract termination case against Samir Nurkovic could have been revealed.
According to sports legal experts, Royal AM have exhausted all avenues in terms of challenging FIFA, who ordered that their termination of Nurkovic's contract in July 2022 was unlawful and therefore have to pay the value stipulated in the deal to the Serbian, believed to be R12 million.
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FIFA's order came with a three-window transfer ban, which could only be lifted if the side pay the striker his monies.
The ban was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), who recently ruled in favour of the 32-year-old after the KZN outfit challenged FIFA at the highest sports court in the world.
After all these legal challenges by the Durban outfit, KickOff.com caught up with Lesedi Mphahlele, Attorney and Director at Fairbridges Wertheim Becker Attorneys, to find out how much Royal AM could have spent on attorney fees in a case that dragged on for at least two years.
"They could have spent a lot of money. Remember they started with the PSL Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC) and when they lost in the PSL DRC, they then went to FIFA. They lost at FIFA, appealed and lost again," Mphahlele told this website, exclusively.
"From there, they went to CAS and have just lost again (on appeal). So, that's a long process. It's very hard to estimate the fees, it depends on the fee agreement between the attorney and the client.
"Us as attorneys, we don't charge the same. Our rates are not the same. I don't know what Leruma's [Thobejane, Royal AM's lawyer] rate is. It's very difficult to estimate, but a rough figure, they must have paid fees in excess of a million [rands], definitely," Mphahlele suggested.
CAS rulings can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, as double Olympic champion Caster Semenya did in 2020.
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However, Royal AM's chances of being successful are very minimal, according to multiple law experts.
Kaizer Chiefs considered that route, of appealing to the Swiss Supreme court, after they lost their appeal case at CAS following the FIFA transfer ban that emanated from the alleged improper signing of Madagascan midfielder Andriamirado 'Dax' Andrianarimanana in 2020.
They, however, were advised against it and served two transfer window bans.