Image rights are the commercial value in a person's identity: their name, face, and reputation, and the ability to license that value to someone who wants to use it to sell something. In football, the phrase usually describes a contractual arrangement in which a player permits a club or a brand to use their identity for promotional purposes in exchange for payment. The important thing to grasp early is that "image rights" describes a commercial deal, not a single item of property the player owns outright.

In the UK, it is a licence backed by a contractual promise, not the transfer of a freestanding property right. The player agrees not to object to specified uses of their identity and agrees to cooperate with them. What the club is really buying is permission plus participation. This matters commercially: because there is no single underlying asset, the value of the deal comes from how tightly the permissions are drafted and how much the player is obliged to do.

In the UK there is no standalone image right. The UK official taxation body "HMRC" is explicit that the only way to protect a pure image right is through the common law tort of passing off, supplemented by trade marks, copyright, privacy and defamation (HMRC Capital Gains Manual CG68410). Other countries do recognise a codified personality or publicity right. That difference is a real right in some places, a legal patchwork in others, and is the root cause of nearly every complication in this series (see Q12 and Part 4).

There is no fixed statutory list, which is precisely why the contract matters. In practice, an image rights agreement will define the territory itself: name, likeness, photograph, signature, nickname, squad number, initials, voice, and sometimes distinctive celebrations or tattoos. Because no law hands the player a defined bundle, the definition clause in the agreement effectively creates the asset. Read that clause first as a broadly drafted definition gives the club far more than an agent may realise.

Ordinarily the photographer owns the copyright in the photograph, not the player. That surprises people, but copyright protects the image as a work, not the person depicted in it. The player's protection lies elsewhere: if the photograph is used to imply endorsement they never gave, that may be actionable as passing off. So a player generally cannot stop a photograph existing or being published editorially, but can object to it being used to suggest they back a product.

They describe substantially the same commercial idea under different legal traditions. "Right of publicity" is the American term and denotes a recognised legal right. "Personality rights" is the usual civil-law formulation in continental Europe. "Image rights" is the term football adopted in the UK, where — as Q3 explains — no such right formally exists. Treat them as regional dialects for one concept, but never assume a protection available under one label exists under another.

Individual image rights concern the player alone — a personal boot deal, a solo advertising campaign. Collective or club image rights concern the player as part of a group: squad photographs, kit launches, matchday content, and league-wide media. Clubs and leagues acquire collective rights as a matter of course, and a player usually cannot opt out. Most disputes arise at the boundary, where a club uses a "collective" right in a way that looks like an individual endorsement.

An image rights company (IRC) is a limited company, controlled by the player, that owns or licenses their image rights. The club pays the IRC for the right to use the player's image, separately from the salary it pays the player. Historically this was tax-driven: company profits were taxed at corporation tax rates rather than at the player's marginal income tax rate. As Part 3 explains, UK law is changing that from April 2027, and the calculation for new arrangements now looks very different.

Imported, and from a considerable distance. The modern right of publicity was born in American baseball card litigation: Haelan Laboratories, Inc. v Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., 202 F.2d 866 (2d Cir. 1953). Judge Jerome Frank coined the phrase "right of publicity" in that judgment, holding that a person has a right in the publicity value of their photograph and can grant that privilege exclusively (full text, Justia). Football adopted a concept that American entertainment and sport had already been developing for four decades.

Before Haelan, the law asked only whether publicity harmed a person. Haelan's innovation was recognising identity as a transferable commercial asset that could be sold outright (Marquette Sports Law Review). US entertainment then spent decades resolving assignability, post-mortem rights and collective licensing. Football arrived late to questions those industries had already worked through — which is why football's disputes so often feel like re-runs.

American entertainment is the deepest, with decades of contractual practice and union bargaining over likeness. Music and modelling have long-established norms for licensing a person's identity. US collegiate sport has moved rapidly since name, image and likeness reform. Esports and influencer marketing are newer but are producing sophisticated contractual language quickly. When football lacks an answer, one of these sectors usually has a workable precedent.

Because each country absorbed it into a legal tradition it already had. The United States built on a recognised right of publicity, which remains a matter of state rather than federal law. Brazil legislated a statutory direito de arena. The UK never created a right at all and left players to passing off. The concept travelled; the legal machinery did not. Part 4 works through what that means market by market.

Three reasons compound. Footballers earn large sums over short careers, so the tax difference between salary and licensing income is material. Clubs employ players and separately want to exploit their images commercially, so there is a genuine second transaction to price. And an established advisory industry grew up around structuring that second transaction. The result is a normal commercial arrangement that has become unusually formalised in football.

Because the commercial terms are negotiated at the table you are sitting at. Whether a player retains their image rights, what the club may do with them, how many appearance days are owed, and whether a separate agreement exists at all are all points settled during a contract negotiation. Lawyers and accountants draft and structure what you agree. If you concede the point before they are involved, there is nothing left for them to fix.

Retain them by default, but understand what "retaining" means. A club will always acquire baseline promotional use through the standard playing contract (Part 2 explains this in detail), so the realistic question is whether the player gives up anything beyond that baseline. For a young player with no commercial income, there is rarely a good reason to hand over more, and a real cost if their career takes off and the club already holds broad rights cheaply.

Mostly the latter, and it is important to be honest about it. At academy and lower-league level, clubs issue standard contracts and have little appetite for bespoke drafting for a player with no commercial profile. Your leverage is limited. What you can realistically do is understand the default position, avoid agreeing to anything worse than it, and resist optional extras that grant broader rights for no additional payment.

When someone other than the player's own club wants to pay for the player's image. That is the practical test. Until a third-party brand is interested, image rights income is largely theoretical, and a separate structure adds cost and scrutiny without benefit. The trigger is external commercial demand, not a divisional threshold or a salary figure.

Raising it badly marks you as inexperienced. Demanding an image rights company for a 17-year-old on a first professional deal signals that you do not understand the economics. Asking sensible questions about what the club's standard contract already grants, and whether anything beyond it is being sought, is straightforward professional diligence. The distinction is between negotiating the terms and demanding a structure.

The downside is that value created later accrues to whoever holds the rights. If a player grants broad rights on a first contract and becomes a first-team regular two years later, the club holds those rights on terms set when the player had no profile. The position is recoverable in principle at renewal or transfer, but only by buying it back with negotiating capital that could have been spent on salary or bonuses.

It can cost goodwill, and occasionally more. Clubs at the lower end of the market have limited patience for negotiation over terms they regard as standard, and an agent who makes image rights a sticking point on a modest contract may find the club less accommodating on the terms that actually matter. Judge whether this is the point worth spending capital on. Usually, for a first contract, it is not.

The player signs the standard contract without granting additional rights beyond it; nothing in the paperwork transfers ownership of the player's identity; the player keeps freedom to pursue their own commercial deals; and no image rights company is set up before there is income to justify it. That is a good outcome. It is undramatic, and it preserves every option for later.

Setting up a company before there is income to put in it. Treating a percentage seen in a media report as a benchmark. Assuming that because a Premier League player has an image rights agreement, a League Two player should. Failing to read what the standard contract already grants, then negotiating for something the player has already given away. And — increasingly costly — advising on UK tax structures without appreciating that the law changes in April 2027 (Part 3).

Whenever the arrangement involves money moving through a company, whenever a cross-border element appears, and whenever a club proposes a separate image rights agreement rather than relying on the standard contract. Structuring income is regulated advice, and it is not your licence to give. Recognising that boundary and having someone to refer to is part of being a professional, not an admission of limitation.

Treat this carefully. Under the FIFA Football Agent Regulations there is a presumption that other services an agent provides within 24 months either side of agent services form part of those agent services (CJEU Press Release 110/26, footnote 5). In other words, billing image rights management separately does not automatically place it outside the regulated fee. Part 4 examines what that means now the Court of Justice has ruled.

Find the clause dealing with the club's use of the player's image, and read three things: the scope of permitted use, whether that use is capped by reference to other players, and whether the contract allows separate supplemental arrangements. In the Premier League standard contract those are clauses 4, 4.6.1 and 4.11 respectively. Part 2 works through exactly what each does.