Ian Lynam Interview: Writing sport’s small print

A chance meeting at a wedding sent Limerick’s Ian Lynam down a road of intricate contracts, sports law and representing some of the biggest names in European football. And at a time when image rights, stats and analytics was being embraced by some of football’s top clubs as they bid to get that competitive edge on their Premier League rivals...

IAN LYNAM headed to London to work at the City’s top corporate law firm, but a colleague’s wedding sent him down a different road. When the Premier League’s January 2005 transfer window was looming, one of the other lawyers was heading off on honeymoon leave. Trouble was, she handled one of the main clients: Arsenal. Could the Limerick man step in and take up the slack?

“I was thinking, it’s an asset transfer, like corporate law,” recalls Lynam now. “I can turn my hand to that.” For the next three years, half of Lynam’s work related to Arsenal - transfers, contracts, etc - and then he moved on to the firm of Charles Russell Speechlys and focused on sports law.