Understanding How Law Affects The Sports Industry

Student number: 14439248

Sport Legislation Assignment Question 2

Understanding how law affects the sport industry as a whole and how the legal system can affect the daily decisions made by sport managers, educators, coaches, athletes and many others, is clearly very important. Sport managers are often concerned over liability issues, for example. Appreciating legal issues and legal process is vital for the successful individual and organisation at any level.

While the intervention of the courts in sporting disputes is not without advantages, increasingly sporting organisations and athletes are amenable to the use of alternative forms of dispute. Alternative forms of dispute resolution did not really begin to become popular until the late 1970s.

The founding purpose of CAS was to extract international sports disputes out of national courts and provide a highly specialized forum where those disputes could be heard and decided upon, quickly and inexpensively. Since its establishment, CAS has gained the recognition and trust of the international sports community and today, is the last instance of appeal for parties involved in a wide variety of sporting disputes, including those related to all Olympic sports and also many non- Olympic sports (Reilly, 2012). The major function of CAS is to address issues which would normally be dealt with by the courts such as eligibility, contractual disputes, suspension of athletes and nationality of athletes for the purpose of

First of all, sport decisions usually rest on questions of fact rather than questions of law. Sport law disputes require knowledge of sport which is not always the case in the ordinary court system. CAS arbitrators are selected from a list of people appointed for their competence in legal matters and because of their knowledge of the problems connected with sports activity. Conflicts, in particular those involving broadcasting or endorsement can involve huge monetary amounts which make litigation undesirable. Also disputes relating to sport require quick decisions which litigation cannot deliver. The culture of sport, particularly in relation to governing bodies, where decisions are usually resolved internally, is repellent to individuals seeking redress in court based judicial proceedings. One of the main advantages of using CAS is its efficiency, particularly when parties are willing to