Spain isn’t just fighting to win the World Cup It is also under growing pressure in the United States to pay billions of Euros in unpaid investment arbitration awards.

Obscure and unjust trade treaty rules have created a situation where investors believe they are entitled to cash because a national government had the nerve to, well, legislate. They are so determined that they have come after anything that could be seen as an asset of the Spanish state, including a Spanish cultural centre in the Netherlands, and now the support structure and travel arrangements of their world cup team. 

Following the 2008 financial crisis, Spain decided to overhaul its renewable energy incentives, including reducing incentives for foreign investment in renewable energy projects. The move triggered numerous Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) claims under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), arguing that Spain had violated its treaty obligations.

ISDS provisions, embedded in thousands of trade agreements, allow corporations to sue governments when public policies threaten expected profits. Sold to governments as a means to attract foreign investment, following over thirty years of ISDS in practice there is no evidence to support this claim. ISDS has increasingly been used by fossil fuel and mining companies to challenge people and planet positive initiatives: environmental regulations, coal phase-outs, mining restrictions, and renewable energy policies. 

Spain became one of the most frequently sued states under the ECT. Spain has consistently resisted payment of awards. This has shifted the battleground from arbitration tribunals to national courts, where investors seek to identify and seize commercial assets belonging to Spain.

Here is where Spain’s World Cup story becomes relevant. As national teams travelled to the United States, one of the most active award creditors, Blasket Renewable Investments, targeted the Spanish national team as Spanish public funds in US territory.  

According to court filings and media reports, subpoenas were directed at organisations connected to the Spanish national team, including FIFA, kit supplier Adidas, hotels hosting the squad, logistics providers and training facilities. The objective was to identify payments or assets from the Spanish government that could potentially satisfy outstanding arbitration awards.

While governments are not obliged to pay ISDS awards and while US courts ultimately disagreed that the Spanish national team were alter egos of the Spanish state, this case illustrates how award creditors pursue sophisticated cross-border enforcement strategies, looking beyond traditional state assets to identify commercial receivables and contractual payments wherever they may arise. Spain's ongoing disputes demonstrate how complex ISDS claims can become and how ISDS becomes a part of the architecture of corporate extraction of public budgets, often at the expense of peoples and the planet.

Spain may be fighting for football's greatest prize, but off the pitch it is engaged in an equally consequential contest over the enforceability of international investment awards. That legal contest may have a far longer legacy than the tournament itself.