Stephen Weatherill
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199275472
- eISBN:
- 9780191699825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275472.003.0004
- Subject:
- Law, EU Law
Professional sport is widely accepted as a business, however, we realize that it possesses certain characteristics that separate it from other businesses and commercial activities. However, we can ...
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Professional sport is widely accepted as a business, however, we realize that it possesses certain characteristics that separate it from other businesses and commercial activities. However, we can see that sport is not given enough legislative competence by the Community, and that representatives of various sports federations assert certain biases to the Court and the Commission of the European Community. In this chapter, the author attempts to examine how and why sport receives ‘special’ treatment, and how this is associated with self-regulatory and legal rules that are not easily justified. The chapter first looks into how sport benefits through claiming exemptions from normal legal control by means of the collective selling of broadcasting rights and player transfer fees. It also looks into issues such as ‘protected events’ legislation where sport is disadvantaged by normal legal requirements.Less
Professional sport is widely accepted as a business, however, we realize that it possesses certain characteristics that separate it from other businesses and commercial activities. However, we can see that sport is not given enough legislative competence by the Community, and that representatives of various sports federations assert certain biases to the Court and the Commission of the European Community. In this chapter, the author attempts to examine how and why sport receives ‘special’ treatment, and how this is associated with self-regulatory and legal rules that are not easily justified. The chapter first looks into how sport benefits through claiming exemptions from normal legal control by means of the collective selling of broadcasting rights and player transfer fees. It also looks into issues such as ‘protected events’ legislation where sport is disadvantaged by normal legal requirements.
