🚨 The RFEF refuses to process your foreign child’s registration? The CSD confirms that procedural decisions blocking the process can also be appealed
Every year, many families move to Spain for professional, personal, or lifestyle reasons. When their children play football, most assume that the process will be straightforward: find a club, apply for a federation licence, and start the season.
It is often at this point that they encounter concepts that are completely unfamiliar to most families—international transfer, FIFA authorisations, Article 19 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP), and FIFA TMS—together with a procedure that, in many cases, leaves the child unable to compete for months, or even until reaching the age of 18.
Unfortunately, there is nothing new about that. These situations arise every season and have become an all-too-familiar problem.
What is truly concerning is when the federation does not even issue a formal decision refusing the licence. Instead, it simply informs the club that it will not process the application any further, declares the file closed, or states that the matter has already been decided.
This inevitably leads to a question that many parents ask us when they come to our firm: if there is no formal decision, what exactly can be appealed?
That was precisely the issue addressed in this case, in which the Spanish Sports Council (Consejo Superior de Deportes – CSD) fully upheld the appeal lodged by the team at Himnus Football Lawyers.
The decision not only reiterates that foreign minors who are legally resident in Spain are entitled to obtain a federation licence, but also introduces a particularly important principle: certain actions taken by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), even if they do not take the form of a formal administrative decision, may still be challenged where they effectively prevent the procedure from continuing.
This may sound like a highly technical issue, but for many families it makes the difference between accepting that their child cannot play and still having a legal avenue through which to defend their rights.
When the problem is no longer FIFA, but the procedure itself
The case began like many others.
A foreign minor moved to Spain with his family as part of a genuine relocation entirely unrelated to football. The family obtained lawful residence, established their home in Spain, and the child became integrated into the Spanish education system. Like any other young player, the child simply wished to continue playing football.
The club applied for the federation licence and, because the player had previously been registered abroad, the RFEF initiated the international transfer procedure applicable to minors.
The initial application was ultimately rejected by FIFA.
When the family subsequently instructed Himnus Football Lawyers, the deadline to appeal FIFA’s decision before the CSD had already expired, meaning that an entirely different legal strategy had to be adopted.
After reviewing the file, we identified significant new evidence that had not been considered in the original application and that substantially reinforced the reality of the family’s relocation and the player’s effective residence in Spain.
Rather than challenging FIFA’s original decision, we requested that the RFEF submit a new application supported by this additional evidence.
It was at that stage that the real problem emerged.
The RFEF refused to forward the new application to FIFA, taking the view that the matter had already been decided and was therefore barred by the principle of res judicata, with no grounds for opening a new procedure.
As a result, the file was closed, preventing any further progress and leaving the player without a licence.
The family was then placed in a particularly difficult position.
There was no formal administrative decision refusing the licence. There was no new FIFA decision either.
There was simply an action by the RFEF which, in practice, made it impossible for the licensing procedure to continue.
And that gave rise to the central legal issue.
Can an action be appealed if it is not a formal decision?
The intuitive answer might be no.
If there is no formal administrative decision, one might assume that there is nothing capable of being challenged.
Administrative law, however, works differently.
Throughout any administrative procedure, numerous intermediate procedural acts are adopted. As a general rule, these procedural acts cannot be appealed separately.
There is, however, a crucial exception.
Where such an act prevents the procedure from continuing or causes irreparable harm, it ceases to be a mere procedural step and becomes independently appealable.
That was precisely the situation here.
The issue was not simply that the RFEF declined to resubmit the application to FIFA.
The decisive point was that this refusal made it impossible for the licensing procedure to continue.
Although there was no formal refusal of the licence, the practical consequence was exactly the same: the player could not play.
That formed the cornerstone of our appeal.
We argued that the RFEF’s conduct could not be characterised as a mere internal procedural step because it produced definitive legal effects.
By closing the file and refusing to submit a new application to FIFA, the RFEF had effectively prevented the player from pursuing any possibility of obtaining a licence.
To accept the contrary would produce an outcome fundamentally incompatible with the procedural guarantees underpinning administrative law.
It would allow a federation to avoid judicial or administrative review simply by refraining from issuing a formal decision.
The CSD: what matters is not the name of the act, but its effects
Before addressing whether the player was entitled to obtain a licence, the CSD first had to determine whether the RFEF’s conduct was capable of being appealed.
The RFEF argued that it was not.
It maintained that it had merely reviewed the documentation and confirmed that FIFA had already ruled on the same situation, meaning that no appealable administrative decision existed.
The CSD disagreed.
Relying on Article 112 of the Spanish Administrative Procedure Act, it recalled that certain procedural acts may indeed be challenged where they produce particularly significant legal effects, including preventing the continuation of the proceedings.
That was exactly what had happened.
The RFEF’s refusal to submit a new application to FIFA was not a mere internal administrative step. On the contrary, it prevented the procedure from continuing and made it impossible for the player to obtain a federation licence.
The CSD therefore concluded that the RFEF’s conduct constituted a qualified procedural act, capable of being challenged because it definitively blocked the procedure.
The decision states this in particularly clear terms:
“The RFEF’s refusal to submit a new application to FIFA and its decision to close the file on 30 April 2026 is equivalent to refusing the licence itself, since that submission is a necessary prerequisite for obtaining the licence.”
The CSD therefore makes it clear that what truly matters is not how the RFEF labels a particular action, but the legal effects that action produces.
If a decision permanently prevents a minor from continuing the procedure necessary to obtain a federation licence, that decision may be reviewed, even where no formal administrative decision has been issued.
Having confirmed its jurisdiction, the CSD then examined the substance of the dispute.
In doing so, it reaffirmed the approach it has consistently adopted in recent years.
The decision recalls that Spanish law affords particular protection to minors’ right to participate in sport and promotes the integration of foreign nationals who are legally resident in Spain.
Accordingly, in the context of non-professional football, the decisive requirement for obtaining a federation licence is the player’s lawful residence in Spain.
A decision that goes far beyond this individual case
The real importance of this decision lies not only in the fact that one young player ultimately secured recognition of her right to obtain a federation licence.
Its significance lies in the message it sends to countless other families facing similar situations.
Very often, the problem is not limited to the final decision itself.
Applications that are no longer processed, files that are simply closed, or refusals to continue the procedure may have consequences every bit as serious as an express refusal of the licence.
And, as the CSD has now confirmed, those actions may also be challenged.
Of course, this does not mean that every action taken by the RFEF is automatically appealable.
Each case must be assessed on its own facts.
However, it does demonstrate that the absence of a formal administrative decision does not necessarily mean that all legal remedies have been exhausted.
For that reason, before concluding that a minor will be unable to compete in Spain, it is essential to examine carefully how the entire administrative procedure has been conducted.
At Himnus Football Lawyers, we have spent years assisting families in matters concerning the registration of foreign minors.
Time and again, we meet parents who believe there is no solution simply because the RFEF has stopped processing their child’s application.
As long as situations like these continue to arise, there will continue to be young players whose access to sport is delayed by procedural issues that are, in many cases, open to legal review.
Ideally, families should not have to appeal to the Spanish Sports Council simply to enable their children to exercise a right that Spanish law itself expressly protects.
Until that day comes, one simple principle is worth remembering:
When the RFEF blocks the procedure, the absence of a formal decision does not necessarily mean that there is nothing to appeal.
Abel Guntín
Associated lawyer
