Charles Russell, Bird & Bird and Pinsent Masons have all scored roles on the Football Association (FA) Group's new-look legal panel following a tender process which saw a total of eight firms appointed.

The two-stage panel process, which came to an end in December last year, saw eight successful firms chosen to work with the FA Group until March 2012.

External advice has been broadly split into four core panels covering corporate support, commercial, regulatory and litigation.

Charles Russell, Pinsents, Mayer Brown, A&O and Bird & Bird have all been appointed to the corporate support panel, which covers company law, competition data, employment and banking. Thames Valley law firm Blandy & Blandy also sits on the corporate panel.

The commercial panel will be split between Bird & Bird for intellectual property (IP) work, while regulation will come under Charles Russell's remit.

The litigation panel will be handled by Charles Russell for general litigation, media litigation and defamation and Bird & Bird for IP disputes.

Two of the FA Group's subsidiaries will have dedicated advisers, with Berwin Leighton Paisner looking after the National Football Centre while Bird & Bird will advise on England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

FA Group legal director Alistair Maclean: "Following the integration of the FA Group, I wanted to take the opportunity to appoint legal panels which would give the group certainty over legal fees for the next two years. I also wanted to ensure that we operate a partnerial approach by sharing information and consolidating our knowledge which will allow us to operate more efficiently."

The Charles Russell pitch was led by senior partner Patrick Russell and media litigation partner Nick Armstrong. At Bird & Bird – which has advised the FA for over 20 years – the relationship is led by media and sports head Justin Walkey, while the Pinsents relationship partner is infrastructure specialist Martin Harman.