Simon Gardiner

Nationality and protectionism in football: why are FIFA’s ‘6+5 rule’ and UEFA’s ‘home-grown player rule’ on the agenda?

Over the last few years, football and other European team sports have sought to reintroduce measures that can be identified as being in the guise of nationality quotas and are protectionist in nature. In football, UEFA has introduced the ‘home-grown player rule’; FIFA initially promoted and then recently decided to apply a moratorium on introducing the so-called ‘6 + 5 rule’. Both of these measures will be examined as to their rationale in sporting terms and their legality under European Union (EU) law in the wake of the Bosman ruling. There also appears to be a ‘turf war’ between UEFA and FIFA as to the right to govern football with regards to this measure. The authors have always argued that it is in the interest of footballers and fans to have full international freedom of movement and that protectionist measures such as playing quotas are an anathema to the good of the game.

Integrity and the corruption debate in sport: where is the integrity?

ABSTRACT Research question: The paper is based on the contention that ‘integrity’ is a significantly under-theorised and under-conceptualised value within sports particularly in its use by a range of organisations fighting corruption in sport, which constitute what can be termed the ‘sports integrity industry’. The ‘sports integrity industry’ reveals: different narratives about integrity amongst the different groups; a lack of integration between the different views of integrity in sport; and the danger of imposing a corporate model of (behavioural-based) integrity. Research methods: The approach adopted in the research is two-fold. Initially, a brief examination will be made of the use of the term integrity by a range of bodies within Europe and wider internationally as part of the sports integrity industry. This identifies different level of depth and sophistication of the meanings given to the term. The second part of the paper clears the conceptual ground, examining the different philosophical and psychological views of integrity. Results and findings: This analysis will distinguish moral and behavioural integrity and examine the theoretical basis for the different understandings of integrity that have been developed in literature around business and public sector activities. The paper concludes that as far as effective engagement with corruption, sport needs to look beyond its own experience and be conscious of the wider debate concerning integrity. Implications: There is an urgent need for the development of the concept and practice of integrity and effective governance in sport that recognises the inherent integrity of sport itself; personal integrity; organisational integrity and procedural integrity in sports events.

R v Amir & Butt [2011] EWCA Civ 2914

The Court of Appeal’s decision opened with the following paragraph: “This is a notorious and essentially simple case.” Three men who had the represented Pakistan in test match cricket took bribes. Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt were two of those players. Butt, in his mid-twenties at the material time, was the captain of the Pakistan team which toured Britain during the summer of 2010. Mohammad Amir, in his late teens, was described as “a prodigious young cricket talent with huge potential.” The third cricketer was Mohammad Asif. The three cricketers agreed with a fourth man, Mazhar Majeed, who was resident in England and was the agent for Butt and Asif, that “no balls” would be bowled at specific identified moments in a test match against England at Lords which took place at the end of August 2010. As agreed, three “no balls” were bowled, two by Amir and one by Asif, in a betting scam called “spot fixing”. The cricketers were corruptly paid for their actions. These events were first revealed in the context of an investigation by a newspaper, the News of the World, into possible corruption in international cricket and the profits to be made by criminals involved in arranging, and gambling on, “spot-fixes”. On 16 September 2011, in the Crown Court trial before Cooke J, Amir pleaded guilty to conspiracy to accept corrupt payments and conspiracy to cheat. On 1 November 2011, Butt was convicted by a jury of the same offences. On 3 November they were sentenced as follows: Butt, to two years six months’ imprisonment for the first offence and two years’ imprisonment for the second, to run concurrently; and Amir, to six months’ detention in a young offender institution on each count, to run concurrently. Asif was convicted by the jury on the same day as Butt and was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently. On 16 September 2011, Mazhar Majeed had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to give corrupt payments—that is the corrupt payments accepted by Butt, Amir and Asif—and to conspiracy to cheat. He too was sentenced on 3 November to two years eight months’ imprisonment and 16 months’ imprisonment, the sentences to run concurrently. Butt and Amir appealed against sentence. Both appeals were dismissed, as discussed below.

Nationality Based Playing Quotas and the International Transfer System Post-Bosman

The European Court’s ruling in the Bosman case resulted in the removal of post-contract restrictions on players moving to new clubs and the abolition of nationality quotas in so far as they impacted on players with EU nationality. This chapter charts the response to the Bosman ruling within football, with respect to the current FIFA rules on international transfers, and the continuing use of player quotas for non-EU players. The central focus of the chapter is the reintroduction of player quotas within Europe as a result of UEFA’s ‘home grown player rule’. We also discuss the proposal by FIFA for a 6 + 5 rule which, if ever implemented, would apply throughout the world. Our central contentions are that both the FIFA and UEFA rules on player quotas are incompatible with EU law, as is the current FIFA transfer system. The chapter concludes by suggesting that the best mechanism for resolving these issues lies in the adoption of the methodology of reflexive legal regulation using the method of EU social law as a paradigm.

Disciplinary provisions for hate speech in football: comparative perspectives

Incidents of alleged racism between participants (primarily between opposing players) in team sports at the elite level have been subject to specific engagement by the relevant sports-based disciplinary procedures. In English football, two incidents in 2011 gained significant media coverage: the first involving the Liverpool player, Luis Suarez, who was penalized with an eight-match ban, the second involving the Chelsea player, John Terry, who received a four-match ban. Terry was also prosecuted and acquitted for a racially aggravated public order criminal offence. These two incidents demonstrate the increasing quasi-criminal nature of sports disciplinary procedures that can be seen as exhibiting characteristics of formal rationality, conflict-based adjudication processes and a punitive nature. This article provides a comparison with the Australian Rules football approach to incidents of this type, where a more overtly conciliatory approach has been adopted, with elements of mediation between the participants concerning allegations of inter-player racism.

Nationality quotas in European football

At the end of 1995, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its historic ruling in the Bosman case. The two limbs of the Bosman ruling were based on what is now Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), also known as the Lisbon Treaty, establishing the rights of European Union (EU) nationals to work on a non-discriminatory basis in any Member State. First, the ECJ ruled that out-of-contract players, who were EU nationals, were entitled to negotiate their own contracts with new clubs within the EU without their current clubs being able to demand a transfer fee before a move to a new club could take place. In this context, the transfer system constituted an unjustified restriction on rights of freedom of movement. Secondly, the so-called ‘3 + 2 rule’ then in place, under which teams could only play a maximum of three foreign players in a team plus a maximum of two foreign players who were able to be classified as assimilated players in that they had been registered in the relevant national association for at least 5 years, was declared to be an unlawful constraint on freedom of movement and was contrary to European discrimination law insofar as players from EU Member States were treated as foreigners. The striking away of protectionist measures as a result of the ruling has had profound effects on the organisational and contractual dynamics of professional sports. The increased mobility of labour generated by the ruling has led to new patterns of migration on the part of professional sportsmen. However, Bosman has not been the end of the story. In the years since the ruling there has been a significant, actual and threatened increase in the legal regulation of professional sport, particularly in the world of professional football as it operates within the framework of the transfer system. Overall, there has been a continuing redrawing of the boundary between regulation through ‘sporting’ rules and external legal regulation. However, over the last few years, football and other European team sports have sought to re-introduce measures, which can be perceived to be new forms of protectionist nationality quotas.