Richard Parrish

Sports law and policy in the European Union

The commercialisation of sport in Europe raises important questions concerning the most appropriate method of regulating sporting activity. The development of the European Union and the internationalisation of sporting competition has added an international dimension to this debate. Yet sport is not simply a business to be regulated in the same way as any other industry. It is also a social and cultural activity. Can regulation at EU level reconcile this tension? Adopting a distinctive legal and political analysis, this book argues that the EU is receptive to the sports sectors claims for special treatment before the law. The book investigates the birth of EU sports law and policy by examining: the Bosman ruling and other significant European Court of Justice decisions; the relationship between sport and EU competition law; the possibility of sport being exempt from EU law; the relationship between sport and the EU Treaty; the development of a EU sports policy. This book is essential for those interested in the major issues facing sport and its relationship with the EU. It is essential for those interested in sports law, the politics of sport and EU integration. It offers important insights into these debates and raises key questions concerning the appropriate theoretical tools for analysing European integration.

The sporting exception in European Union law

Is Sport Special?.- EU Sports Policy.- EC Free Movement Law.- The Sporting Exception: Form and Substance.- EC Competition Law and Sport.- Sports Broadcasting in Community Law.- The European Labour Market for Professional Players.- Legal Issues in the Governance of Sport.- Conclusions.

Beyond Bosman: The European Union's Influence upon Professional Athletes' Freedom of Movement

The purpose of this article is to explain how the law of the European Union (EU) has revolutionized the freedom of professional athletes’ abilities to move from one club to another, and from one EU member state to another, in order to avail themselves of employment opportunities that come their way. The article also provides an assessment of the ongoing endeavours of sports organizations and the EU to forge a new working relationship in the wake of the Bosman ruling. Sports organizations want to establish an arrangement that will protect sport from the full rigours of EU law; but the EU is equally concerned with ensuring that fundamental, immutable principles of EU law are respected by clubs, governing bodies and other sporting organizations. One of the key principles that the EU regards as sacrosanct is the principle of the free movement of workers – the right for people to move from one member state to another in order to work – and it was issue that was at the heart of Belgian Football Association v. Bosman (hereafter ‘Bosman’) ([1996] All ER (EC) 97) Consequently the starting point for this article is the European Court of Justice’s ruling in Bosman, which heralded the demise of two of European football’s sacred cows–the transfer system and the player quota rules– as a consequence of the application of the laws on freedom of movement.

Social Dialogue in European Professional Football

Social dialogue refers to discussions, consultations, negotiations and joint actions involving organisations representing the two sides of industry, namely employers and workers. The constitutional basis for social dialogue is located within Articles 153–155 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. In July 2008, a social dialogue committee in European professional football was established. This article assesses the significance of this move and argues that the committee has the long-term potential to transform industrial relations in European football based on the conclusion of binding collective agreements. In the shorter term, the committee performs two functions: first, as a means of effecting a change in governance standards in European football and as a lobbying technique for the social partners in terms of their relationship with the EU; second, as a venue for a negotiated settlement between the rival interests operating within the EUs sports policy subsystem.

Football’s Place in the Single European Market

The juridification of European football has been inextricably linked to financial developments in the sport. EU law has affected player mobility, the sale, purchase and transmission of broadcasting rights, the organization of football and ticketing arrangements. This article argues that the debate over the direction of EU sports regulation has taken place in the context of competition between two rival advocacy coalitions. Whilst the regulators define sport (particularly football) as an economic activity, the protectionists have sought to protect sport from EU law by stressing the social and cultural foundations of the sector. These actors have strategically exploited institutional venues in the EU in order to steer sports policy in a direction consistent with their belief system. This venue shopping has contributed to the establishment of a new approach for dealing with sports related cases in the EU. The new approach involves reconciling the economic and socio-cultural aspects of sport within the EUs legal framework. However, will this new approach satisfy the objectives of both advocacy coalitions and if not, what further venues may policy advocates seek to exploit? By applying the methodology contained in the actor-institutions framework, it becomes clear that the development of sports regulation is only likely to diverge incrementally from the principles contained in the new approach.

Article 17 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players: Compatibility with EU Law

Article 17 of the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players governs the consequences of a unilateral termination of a professional footballers employment contract without just cause. The interpretation of this measure by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the manner through which the FIFA Disciplinary Code enforces such awards, raises questions as to the compatibility of the regime with EU competition and free movement laws. To avoid rendering unenforceable awards in the territory of the EU, CAS panels should apply EU law more systematically and consistently.

The European Social Dialogue: A New Mode of Governance for European Football?

In 2008 a social dialogue committee for European professional football was established and in 2012 it concluded its first agreement on minimum requirements in standard player contracts. The dynamics behind the establishment of the committee are numerous but the Europeanisation of industrial relations in football is strongly connected to the liberalisation of the European labour market for players following the European Court’s judgment in Bosman. That social dialogue in European football can deliver more wide ranging agreements akin to those found in US sports remains a long term prospect, but in the shorter term the committee can be influential in recalibrating governance standards in European football and seeking solutions to specific problems within the sector.

Editorial: Implementing the European Commission White Paper on Sport

This special issue of the International Journal of Sport Policy presents a collection of papers based on presentations at the third annual Sport&EU Workshop in Southport, United Kingdom, in July 2008. The workshop was organised by the Centre for Sports Law Research at Edge Hill University and Sport&EU (the Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union). Sport&EU was established in 2005 as a network of academics and practitioners designed to advance the interdisciplinary and theoretically informed study of the relationship between sport and the European Union. It currently draws its membership of over 250 from 31 countries worldwide. The workshop was funded by grants from the Centre for the Study of International Governance at Loughborough University, the University Association for Contemporary European Studies, and Edge Hill University. Twenty-eight delegates invited to the workshop represented 33 institutions from 12 countries. The papers in this anthology take stock of several policy developments articulated in the European Commission’s July 2007White Paper on Sport. Although not a starting point in the Commission’s engagement with sporting issues, the White Paper is perhaps its first systematic treatment of the connection between sport and the regional integration process in Europe. It is also notable for the articulation of the Pierre de Coubertin ‘Action Plan’ which contains a number of proposed actions to be implemented or supported by the Commission. As a contribution to this agenda, this special issue first presents an overview of the Commission’s approach supplied by Rogulski (European Commission) and Miettinen (University of Salford). This is followed by two papers exploring the White Paper’s focus on the organisation of sport in Europe. Hill (UEFA) provides a stakeholder perspective on the Commission’s approach and García (Loughborough University) discusses the significance of the Commission’s reluctance to define a European model of sport within the White Paper. Three contributions then explore the White Paper’s chapter on the societal role of sport. Two of these discuss deviant behaviour in sport with Coenen (University of Lucerne) discussing legislative responses to combating public disorder at sporting events and Mutz (Technical University of Dortumnd) and Baur (University of Potsdam) assessing whether membership of sports clubs has an impact on the violent behaviour of adolescents. Finally, Platts and Smith (University of Chester) discuss the implications of the White Paper for education and welfare provision in professional football academies in Europe. The papers offered at the workshop included multiand interdisciplinary approaches drawn from law, political science, sociology, and economics. Contributions in this special issue examine the evidence base for some claims made as to the social benefits and costs of sporting activity and structures, and the consequential claims for a sensitive application of legal rules. Sport may be special, but if the White Paper’s action plan is to be implemented on the basis of evidence based calculations, many of these International Journal of Sport Policy Vol. 1, No. 3, November 2009, 243–244

Sports Regulation in the European Union: A New Approach

In December 2000 in Nice, the European Council agreed to grant the social, educational and cultural functions of sport special status within the European Unions (EU) Treaty framework. Although the Nice Declaration on Sport does not commit the EU legally, it does represent a significant strengthening of the Declaration on Sport annexed to the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. Coming just 6 years after the European Court of Justices Bosman verdict effectively defined much sport as an economic activity, how can we explain the EUs apparent redefinition of sport? Why have changes in EU spor ts policy been confined to the regulatory side of EU involvement and not to the distributional elements? The application of a fused actor/institutions methodology for examining public policy change in the EU provides some answers.

Case C-36/74 Walrave and Koch [1974] ECR 1405

The claimants, Dutch nationals, offered their services for remuneration to act as pacemakers on motorcycles in medium distance races for participants (called “stayers”) who cycled in the lee of the motorcycle. The claimants provide their services under agreements with the stayers or the national associations or with sponsors. The first defendants, as the rule making body for the sport, and including its world championships, endorsed a regulation that provided “as from 1973 the pacemaker must be of the same nationality as the stayer”. The claimants considered this provision to be incompatible with EU law in so far as it prevented a pacemaker of one Member State from offering his services to a stayer of another Member State. The claimants brought an action against the defendant in a court in Utrecht for a declaration that the rule was void and an order that the defendants allow them to compete at the world championships. The Utrecht court took the view that questions of the interpretation of EU law arose and referred a number of questions to the European Court of Justice for preliminary ruling.