The German and International Sports Law Research Unit
On 24 April 2002, the law department of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg passed a resolution setting up a research unit on German and international sports law. The research unit functions as an adjunct of the Institute for Law and Technology (www.irut.de) and the chair for civil law, commercial law, and law of technology.The unit’s establishment came as a resounding acknowledgment of the energetic work carried on in the field of sports law by the Institute for Law and Technology, in particular its director, Professor Dr. Klaus Vieweg, and some of his research assistants and PhD students, over a period of years. After completing both a law and a sports degree in Münster, Klaus Vieweg wrote his postdoctoral thesis (Habilitationsschrift) on German and international sports organizations - thus
becoming the first German scholar to publish a postdoctoral thesis on a sports law topic. Following his appointment to the chair in Erlangen, Professor Vieweg continued to specialize in sports law. Along with commercial law and the law governing clubs and associations,
sports law now forms one of the Institute’s main research interests. Up to now, six staff members have successfully completed doctoral dissertations in the area of sports law: Isolde Hannamann
(“Kartellverbot und Verhaltenskoordinationen im Sport”), Christian Paul (“Grenzwerte im Doping”), Frank Oschütz (“Sportschiedsgerichtsbarkeit”), Magdalena Kedzior (“Gerichtliche Überprüfung von Vereinsstrafen am Beispiel von Sportverbänden im deutschen und polnischen
Rechtssystem”), Simon Weiler („Mehrfachbeteiligungen an Sportkapitalgesellschaften - Verbote von ‚Multi-Club Shareholding’ und deren Grenzen aus Sicht europäischen Rechts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Profifußballs in Deutschland”), and Fabian Schmidt („Electronic and Mobile Commerce im Bundesligafußball - Rechtsfragen der Vermarktungsinstrumente im Zusammenhang mit dem Aufbau und der Führung einer Marke im Bundesligafußball”).
In 2000/01, a study group on the “Legal Comparison and Harmonization of Doping Rules” - chaired by Professor Vieweg and conducted in cooperation with the T.M.C. Asser Institute for
International Law (The Hague), the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg i.B.), and Anglia Polytechnic University (Chelmsford) - was set up at the request of the European Commission. Professor Vieweg also co-edits two series - “Beiträge zum Sportrecht” and “Recht und Sport” - as well as of the journal “Zeitschrift für Sport und Recht (SpuRt)”, which make important contributions to ongoing sports law research; as do regular
interuniversity conferences on sports law, the contributions to which have been published in three separate volumes of proceedings entitled “Spektrum des Sportrechts”, “Perspektiven des Sportrechts”; and “Prisma des Sportrechts” respectively. As Vice-President of both the
German Sports Law Association (Deutsche Vereinigung für Sportrecht - DVSR - formerly: Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für Sportrecht) and the International Association of Sports Law (IASL),
Professor Vieweg is a key figure among national and international sports lawyers.
Currently, research at the unit is focussed on preparing a section on Germany for the International Sports Law Encyclopedia and on setting up a sports law data bank.
Klaus Vieweg; Klaus.vieweg@irut.de; Irut@irut.de