{
    "case_number": "CAC-UDRP-101502",
    "time_of_filling": "2017-04-05 09:59:30",
    "domain_names": [
        "euro2024.com"
    ],
    "case_administrator": "  Iveta Špiclová   (Czech Arbitration Court) (Case admin)",
    "complainant": [
        "Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA)"
    ],
    "complainant_representative": null,
    "respondent": [
        "Des  Gamble"
    ],
    "respondent_representative": null,
    "factual_background": "The Complainant is the well-known governing body for association football in Europe. It is one of six continental confederations. UEFA consists of 55 national association members.\r\n\r\nUEFA represents the national football associations of Europe and runs national team and club competitions including the UEFA European Football Championship, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and UEFA Super Cup, and controls the prize money, regulations, and media rights to those competitions. \r\n\r\nThe UEFA European Football Championship was founded in 1960 and is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of UEFA. It has been held every four years thereafter and starting with the 1984 tournament specific championships have been referred to as the “UEFA EURO [year of championship]” or simply the “EURO [year of championship]”. \r\n\r\nIn the case of the 1984 tournament the form this name took was “EURO 84”, and in subsequent years the names used have been “EURO 88”, “EURO 92”, “EURO 96”, “EURO 2000”, “EURO 2004”, “EURO 2008”, “EURO 2012”, “EURO 2016”,  and for the future “EURO 2020” and “EURO 2024”. In each case the name was used to refer to the tournament many years prior to the date of the tournament itself. For example, the name “EURO 2000” was in use since at least 1997 with the draw for the tournament taking place in January 1998, in Belgium.\r\n\r\nThe Complainant’s EURO Football tournaments are world famous and are particularly famous in Europe. Submitted evidence shows accumulated TV audience figures for the EURO 2016 Final Tournament on a global basis of 9,977,678,655. \r\n\r\nThe “EUROs” are the second most watched football tournament in the world after the FIFA World Cup. The EURO 2016 final match was watched by a global audience of around 173.5 million alone. \r\n\r\nThe Complainant has registered since at least 1993 a large number of trade marks in the UK, Europe and around the world that either comprise or incorporate the term “EURO” followed by a number representing the year of the tournament, inter alia  the union trademark EURO2024, No. 011322351 applied for on November 6, 2012 in several classes.\r\n\r\nIn addition to the registered rights identified above and by reason of the Complainant’s very extensive use of the terms “EURO 84”, “EURO 88”, “EURO 92”, “EURO 96”, “EURO 2000”, “EURO 2004”, “EURO 2008”, “EURO 2012”, “EURO 2016” and also by reason of its use of the terms “EURO 2020” and “EURO 2024” the Complainant claims to has developed very substantial goodwill in each of those terms and more generally any term that takes the form “EURO 20XX” where “20XX” represents a year in which the tournament takes place.\r\n\r\nThe disputed domain name has been registered in 1999. The parties dispute whether the Respondent was from the beginning, as the Respondent claims,  and continuously proprietor of the disputed domain name or not, as the Complainant claims. \r\n\r\nIn the years between 2007 and 2017, the disputed domain name was used for a website that appears to have been generated by a domain name “pay-per-click” service. The form of the display of those webpages related inter alia to football, later on also to other sports blogs, and lately a twitter feed under the twitter name “EURO2024” was added on the website  whereas the related tweets were not completely, but to a certain extent football related.\r\n\r\nThe Respondent never disputed that he was aware of the term EURO 2024 being the  name of the Complainant´s tournament in the year 2024.\r\n",
    "other_legal_proceedings": "The Panel is not aware of any other legal proceedings.",
    "no_response_filed": "PARTIES' CONTENTIONS:\r\n\r\nCOMPLAINANT:\r\n\r\nThe Complainant, inter alia, argues that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to its well-known and distinctive trademarks. \r\n\r\nThe Complainant is required to make out a prima facie case that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests. Once such prima facie case is made, the Respondent carries the burden of demonstrating rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. If the Respondent fails to do so, the Complainant is deemed to have satisfied paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy.\r\n\r\nThe Complainant contends that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name, in particular that the Respondent is commonly known under the domain name or is marking an legitimate non-commercial use of the disputed domain name. \r\n\r\nThe Complainant is, regardless of the date of the Respondent on which he became proprietor or proprietor again of the disputed domain name, of the opinion that the registration was in bad faith since the Respondent was aware of the term EURO2024 being associated with the Complainant’s tournament.\r\n\r\nFurther, the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name in connection with a website for a purported “sports modelling” business, constitutes an intentional attempt to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s above identified marks as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the Respondent’s website or location or of a product or service on the Respondent’s website or location. \r\n\r\nFurther, if (as the Respondent alleges) the Respondent controlled the Domain Name prior to the 2011 re-registration of the Domain Name in his name, the use of the Domain Name to display pay-per-click pages is further bad faith use that falls within the scope of paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy. \r\n\r\nThus, the Complainant contends that the Respondent has registered the disputed domain name and is using it in bad faith. \r\n\r\n\r\nRESPONDENT:\r\n\r\nThe Respondent, inter alia, claims to have registered the disputed domain name euro2024.com in 1999 and to always renewed it since then.\r\n \r\nIt was purchased with the intention to use visual basics and other techniques to perfect Respondent´s modelling of snooker matches. The Respondent claims that at this time he was also working with various statistical techniques to try and understand how random patterns repeat themselves. Pascal’s Triangle was one such technique and he was interested in the general link between numbers and patterns formed where there are two possible outcomes – for a sport like snooker the Respondent claims to have liked the fact that 2024 was both a Tetrahedral number with a 22 ball base (game of snooker starts with 22 balls on the table) and was also included in Pascal’s Triangle and in 1999 decided to purchase the domain Euro2024.com which combined the number with the euro sports field that he was working in at the time.\r\n\r\nFurthermore, ‘Euro’ was, at that time,  a popular term (the currency had just launched) and he liked the fact to combine the popular household term ‘euro’ with a number that was mathematically linked with the game of snooker. \r\n\r\nThe Respondent is of the view that in 1999 when he purchased the domain name there was no indication that the Complainant was going to host information on the domain euro2024.com such as it did not happen on euro1992, euro1996.com or even at that time the imminent euro2000.com.\r\n\r\nFurther, the Complainant had have enough time to sort out purchases of any later domain names.\r\n",
    "rights": "The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy).",
    "no_rights_or_legitimate_interests": "The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the Respondent to have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy).",
    "bad_faith": "The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy).",
    "procedural_factors": "The Panel is satisfied that all procedural requirements under UDRP were met and there is no other reason why it would be inappropriate to provide a decision.\r\n\r\nBoth parties have filed additional statements commenting on arguments of the other side. The Panel has in its own discretion, allowed and considered both further statements.\r\n\r\nIn March 2017, communication between the parties could not resolve the matter. After commencement of the present proceedings and a few days before the due date for the Panellist´s decision, the Complainant requested an order to transfer the disputed domain name without a decision on the merits being rendered in view of a respective agreement, for which an e-mail excerpt was presented, between the parties to transfer the disputed domain name without a decision on the merits being rendered. \r\n\r\nThe Panel found it more appropriate to ask the Respondent to confirm his agreement to transfer the disputed domain name without a decision on the merits being rendered directly over the communication platform of the Czech Arbitration Court until a certain date. The Respondent, however, did not file such statement. Accordingly, the Panel found it appropriate and necessary to render the decision as follows.\r\n",
    "decision": "Accepted",
    "panelists": [
        "Dietrich Beier"
    ],
    "date_of_panel_decision": "2017-05-19 00:00:00",
    "informal_english_translation": "The Complainant has registered since at least 1993 a large number of trade marks in the UK, Europe and around the world that either comprise or incorporate the term “EURO” followed by a number representing the year of the tournament, inter alia  the union trademark EURO 2024, No. 011322351 applied for on November 6, 2012 in several classes.",
    "decision_domains": {
        "EURO2024.COM": "TRANSFERRED"
    }
}