The image of a professional athlete is a major economic asset: it supports sponsorship agreements, advertising campaigns and merchandising lines. Precisely because of its value, it is also one of the assets most frequently used without authorisation online: advertisements suggesting a non-existent endorsement, online stores selling products featuring the athlete’s image, betting operators using photographs of players in their promotions, or fake profiles impersonating their identity.
Clubs, representation agencies and rights holders can take action against these uses, and it is important to understand the legal grounds available and the different ways to proceed.
The legal framework: a fundamental right with an economic dimension
The right to one’s own image is recognised in Article 18.1 of the Spanish Constitution and developed by Organic Law 1/1982 on the civil protection of the right to honour, personal and family privacy and one’s own image.
The starting rule is simple: capturing, reproducing or publishing a person’s image requires their consent, and that consent is revocable and must be interpreted strictly. In professional sport, moreover, the exploitation of image rights is often contractually assigned to the club, agency or rights management companies, adding a contractual layer to the legal protection.
Organic Law 1/1982 itself provides for certain exceptions: the informational use of images of public figures taken at public events, or caricature in accordance with accepted social usage. A media outlet may, for example, illustrate a match report with a photograph of the goal.
What no exception covers is commercial or advertising use: case law consistently distinguishes between information and exploitation. Using an athlete’s image to sell, promote or attract customers requires authorisation.
Common unauthorised uses online
- Advertising suggesting a non-existent endorsement or sponsorship, including native advertising and social media ads.
- Merchandising and the sale of products featuring the athlete’s image, name or shirt number on marketplaces and online stores.
- Betting operator promotions illustrated with images of players or teams without a licence.
- Fake profiles and accounts impersonating the athlete or people around them, with or without a commercial purpose.
- AI-generated content: deepfakes and voice or image cloning, a rapidly expanding area that we analyse in a specific article in this series.
- Use of archive images in contexts that damage the athlete’s reputation or associate them with products they have not agreed to endorse.
What can be claimed
Organic Law 1/1982 classifies these uses as unlawful interference and provides a powerful range of remedies: immediate cessation of the use, removal of the content, prohibition of future uses and compensation.
One particularly important element is that, once the unlawful interference has been established, damage is presumed. Compensation is determined according to the circumstances of the case and the seriousness of the infringement. In commercial uses, factors such as the benefit obtained by the infringer, the extent of dissemination and the economic value associated with exploiting the image become particularly relevant. In the case of elite athletes, these amounts can be very significant.
Depending on the circumstances, an action under Organic Law 1/1982 may be combined or supplemented with other legal remedies: unfair competition —acts of confusion, undue exploitation of another party’s reputation or unlawful advertising—, trademark infringement where the athlete’s or club’s name or signs are registered, and data protection, since an image constitutes personal data and its processing must have an appropriate legal basis.
The fast track: removal from platforms under the DSA
Before or in parallel with court proceedings, the Digital Services Act (DSA) requires platforms to provide notice-and-action mechanisms for illegal content.
A properly substantiated notice —identifying the content, the legal basis for its illegality and the claimant’s standing— allows these mechanisms to be activated and requires the platform to process the notice diligently. In the case of advertising campaigns, platforms’ advertising channels may also make it possible to target the advertisement at its source.
The practical key is twofold: submit the notice correctly and preserve evidence of every step taken.
How to prepare a claim
- Document the use: complete screenshots showing the date and URL, download the content and, in high-value cases, consider a notarial record or certification by a trusted third party.
- Prove ownership or assignment of the rights: representation agreement or agreement assigning the athlete’s image rights to the club or agency.
- Determine the extent of the use: duration, territories, number of impressions, campaign reach or sales made, all of which may be decisive in determining the amount of compensation.
- Identify the responsible party: advertiser, marketplace seller, domain holder or any other party responsible for the exploitation.
- Prior formal notice: in many cases, a properly drafted formal demand can secure cessation of the use and open negotiations over compensation without the immediate need to go to court.
Conclusion
The unauthorised use of athletes’ images online is not an unavoidable inconvenience: it may constitute unlawful interference giving rise to effective actions for cessation, removal and compensation, reinforced by the mechanisms provided by the DSA for illegal content hosted or disseminated through digital platforms.
The difference between a strong case and a weak one often lies in the evidence and the claims strategy.
If you represent a club, an agency or an athlete whose image is being used without authorisation, at our practice we can analyse the case, manage the removal of the content and claim the corresponding compensation.