Abstract: The unilateral termination of professional football labor contract requires a just cause according to the practical needs of football development and the provisions of FIFA. Based on the practice of football industry, the unilateral termination of professional football labor contract by football players is mainly caused by club's failure in player registration, excessive deduction of players' salary and lack of training conditions, while the reasons for the unilateral termination of labor contract by clubs include football players' injuries and illnesses, their poor performances, leaving the team without permission or refusal to return to the team, and ingestion of prohibited substances. Due to the differences in thinking pattern and methodology, there is a clear distinction between this practice and the pre-arranged statutory termination in existing labor legislations in China. Thus in the future, the settlement of disputes over unilateral termination of professional football labor contract in China should be resolved by classifying the just causes of termination into different types through case induction by the sports arbitration panel by referring to the jurisprudence of international sports arbitration, so as to properly resolve the conflict between the application of state law and the practice of football industry.

Key words: professional football labor contract, unilateral termination, just cause, international sports arbitration, sports law