2006-06-06 / The European Union and Sport: Law and Policy – Developments and Prospects

On 6 June 2006 the sixth Asser-Clingendael International Sports Lecture took place at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague on The European Union and Sport: Law and Policy – Developments and Prospects.
Speakers were:
Prof. Stephen Weatherill, Professor of EC Law, University of Oxford, United Kingdom; Mr Jean-Louis Dupont, ELEGIS Law Firm, Liège, Belgium; Dr Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, General Manager of the Association of European Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), Nyon, Switzerland; Mr Theo van Seggelen, Secretary-General of
the Fédération Internationale des Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPro), Hoofddorp, The Netherlands ; and Mr Toine Manders, Member of European Parliament, Strassbourg and Brussels. The meeting was introduced by Dr Robert Siekmann, Director of the ASSER International Sports Law Centre and chaired by Prof. Ian Blackshaw, International Center for Sports Studies, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
 
EXPLANATION:
Sport is unlike any other business. At one level it performs educational, public health, social, cultural and educational functions. At another level, sport is big business capable of generating considerable revenues. Sport also operates under different market conditions to other industries with competitors (clubs) having a vested interest in the strength and survival of their rivals. This uniqueness has contributed to the construction of an organizational model described as the “European Model of Sport” endowed with a rule book designed to protect the “specificity” of sport. Many of these rules would not be considered appropriate in “normal” industries and would be subject to legal challenge because they inhibit the development of a level playing field either through restricting the free movement of workers or by placing undue market restrictions on the commercial freedom of undertakings. These concerns have now emerged in sport, particularly as players, clubs and governing bodies increasingly carry out significant economic activities. This has contributed to a growing number of sporting complaints brought before the EU.*
 
* From: Executive Summary, Professional Sport in the Internal Market, Report commissioned by the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament, T.M.C. Asser Institute, Edge Hill University (United Kingdom) and Sport 2B (The Netherlands), September 2005, at p. 5.