Introduction to Sports Law

Rajat Dixit
 What is Sports?
Spontaneous and
Unconstrained
Play

Regulated (Games)

Competitive
Non- Competitive
(Contest)

Physical Contest
Intellectual Contest
(Sports)
 History of Sports

Pre-1894 Post- 1894

● Ancient Time-
○ Hunting
○ Ball Game
○ Kemari
● Sports in ancient Rome
● Sports in medieval time
● Sports in Renaissance and modern Time.
● Sports as a tool for Physical Education
● Industrial Revolution and its impact on Sports
 Pre- 1894

● 776 BC- First recorded ancient Olympic Games- Athens.

● 1490- Leonardo da Vinci designed world's first bicycle
● 1500s- Golf originated from a game played on the coast of Scotland.
● 1550s- Early forms of tennis were being played in various regions of Europe
● 1600s- The first mention of the game of cricket.
● 1743- Boxing Rules framed by Jack Broughton
● 1787- Marylebone Cricket Club
● 1839- first Grand National horse race
● 1845- Alexander Cartwright wrote the first comprehensive set of rules for baseball
● Inter University sports competition-
○ Oxford -cambridge (1850)
○ Athletics (1864)
○ Amature Athletic Association (1880)
● 1857- First Golf Championship- Scotland
● 1859- First overseas tour- England to North America
● 1860- First Men’s British Open golf tournament
● 1861- First Melbourne Cup horse race
● 1863- The Football Association was is founded in London, England
● 1871- Rugby Football Union
● 1876-Baseball's National League in the US started
● 1880- Manchester United by City railroad workers
● 1895-The first ever US golf open was held
 Post 1894

● 1894- Olympic Congress- Paris [Sorbonne Conference]

● 1896- First Modern Olympic- Athens, Greece
● 1904- Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)
● 1909- The International Cricket Council (ICC)
● 1912- International Amature Athletic Federation
○ 2001- International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF)
● 1978- UNESCO General Conference adopts the International Charter of Physical
Education and Sport.
● 2003- First International Conference on Sport & Development- Switzerland
● 2005- International Year of Sport and Physical Education by UNGA
 What is Sports Law

● “Sports Law” or “Sports and the Law”

● Traditional view
○ ‘Sports Law’ does not exist.
● Moderate view
○ ‘Sports Law’ may develop into a field of Law
○ Views of Professor Kenneth Shropshire
○ Sports and the Law
● Post- Moderate view
○ ‘Sports Law’ as a separate discipline
○ Views of Simon Gardiner
 Process of creation of a new Discipline
● Unique application by courts of law from other disciplines to a specific context;
● Factual peculiarities within a specific context that produce problems requiring specialized analysis;
● Issues involving the proposed discipline’s subject matter must arise in multiple, existing, common law or
statutory areas
● Within the proposed discipline, the elements of its subject matter must connect, interact, or interrelate;
● Decisions within the proposed discipline conflict with decisions in other areas of the law and decisions
regarding a matter within the proposed discipline impact another matter within the discipline;
● Proposed discipline must significantly affect the nation’s (or the world’s) business, economy, culture, or
society;
● Development of interventionist legislation to regulate specific relationships;
● Publication of legal casebooks that focus on the proposed discipline;
● Development of law journals and other publications specifically devoted to publishing writings that fall
within the parameters of the proposed field;
● Acceptance of the proposed field by law schools; and,
● Recognition by legal associations, such as bar associations, of the proposed field as a separately
identifiable substantive area of the law.
 Nature of Sports Law

● International Sports Law v. Global Sports Law

○ International Sports Law- Principles of International Law applicable to Sports
○ Global Sports Law- Sports without State
● Houlihan ‘Internationalised Sports’ and ‘Globalised Sports’
● International Governance of Sports
○ Classification of rules applied to sport:
■ The rules of the game
■ The ethical principles of sport
■ International sports law
■ Global sports law
 Global Sports Law

● An organisation with constitutional governing powers over international sport.

● A global forum for the resolution of disputes arising out of Sports..
● Presence of distinct and unique norms at global level..
● Presence of International sports law.
● Global sports law creates an ‘immune system’ that is respected by national courts.
 Lex Sportiva

● Beloff (arbitrator for the Court of Arbitration for Sport)- Lex Sportiva
○ Sports law is ‘inherently international in character’ because its ‘normative
underpinning’ is in the constitutions of international sporting federations.
● Elements in Lex Sportiva-
○ it has transnational norms generated by the rules and practices of international
sporting federations,
○ it has a unique jurisprudence, with legal principles that are different from those of
national courts, and which is declared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and
○ it is constitutionally autonomous from national law.
● Contractual Private Order
● The Principles of sports law are not derived from national legal systems and thus
cannot be enforced through national courts
● the ‘cornerstone’ of lex sportiva, is to allow ‘autonomy for decision making bodies in
sport’ and to establish a ‘constitutional equilibrium’ between courts and sports
federations.
 Lex Mercatoria

● Does all the legal order created by Nation state?

● Elements of Lex Mercatoria
○ its norms are generated by the international custom and practice of commercial
contracts and these practices have become standardised,
○ arbitration is deemed to be superior to litigation as a method of settling disputes,
and
○ it can contain provisions to prevent the application of national laws.
● Fundamental questions-
○ Can an arbitrator decide an international dispute on principles of law that are
independent of any national legal system?
○ If the answer to this is positive, how do these unique principles of lex mercatoria
get their binding legal force?
● Paradox of self validating contract.
○ Closed circuit arbitration
 Global sports law and its autonomy

● International sporting federations are simply not legally accountable

● Creation of hierarchy of interlocking norms that ensures that International sports bodies
have jurisdiction over everyone and everything connected with the sport internationally.
● Lex sportiva can be seen as a directive to national courts that they must follow.
● international sporting federations claim autonomy for their methods of dispute
resolution