Sports Law, Policy & Diplomacy Journal

REFLECTIONS ON THE 2023 SPORT&EU ANNUAL CONFERENCE

2023-12-12T11:48:18+01:00

THE EUROPEAN SPORT MODEL: A MODEL TO DEFEND

2023-10-17T09:09:21+02:00

The contradictory positions taken by the European institutions on the European Sport Model have demonstrated the difficulty of understanding such a model for decades. The existing conflicting situations show that the specificity of sport is struggling to play its role in protecting European sport. It, therefore, seems legitimate to ask the question of how to defend the European sport model, especially in the context of heterogeneous legislation and organisational models for sports within European countries. The aim of the article is, above all, to demonstrate that the European model emanates from a vision based on fundamental values that must take sport beyond the mere consideration of economic activity. As such, one of the challenges lies in maintaining the interactions between the different levels of the pyramid.

THE EVOLUTION OF GENDER REPRESENTATION IN THE DECISION-MAKING POSITIONS OF SPORT GOVERNING BODIES IN SWITZERLAND

2023-06-09T22:04:51+02:00

This contribution addresses the issue of women’s underrepresentation in the decision-making positions of sports organisations with a quantitative descriptive analysis. Building on the results of national and international benchmark studies and a review on measures to improve gender representation, we (a) analyse the evolution of women’s representation in decision-making positions of national sport governing bodies in Switzerland over a 10-year period (2012-2021) and (b) compare the observed evolution with the implementation of hard and soft measures. Our findings show a fluctuation of women’s representation but no clear evidence of a positive and increasing evolution during the investigated period. We also observe that the level of women’s representation compared to men remains low whereas measures have been implemented. We discuss our results with a potential "anticipatory obedience” effect that is detected in the last years of investigation after the announcement of a legally binding target by the federal government and, building on literature, anticipate an increasing positive effect of the measure after its enforcement in 2024. To conclude, our study supports evidence in literature that the implementation of hard measures can contribute to a positive evolution in gender representation in the decision-making positions of sport organisations but still needs more current data to confirm evidence from other countries.

EU NORMATIVE ACTORNESS IN SPORT: AN IDEA(L) WHOSE TIME HAS COME?

2023-07-05T14:36:54+02:00

Research on the European Union in the fields of international relations and European studies has all too often been skewered towards two important axes of debate which have been running relatively independently of each other: the study of the European Union (EU) as a normative power (NPE) and the study of EU actorness. This paper sets out to demonstrate the conceptual applicability of an integrated EU actorness-NPE perspective for understanding the EU’s unique identity. To build on this conceptual linkage, the article utilizes as its unit of analysis, the EU’s area of sport policy, before going onto frame it within the NPE-actorness debates when assessing the identity of the EU in international sport. Two central questions drive the study: (1) is the EU a normative actor in the manner espoused by Ian Manners when looking at sport and (2) if it is a normative actor, does it conform to the traditional characteristics of EU actorness that characterizes Jupille and Caporaso’s EU actorness thesis. It makes use of document reviews pertaining to EU sport during the period between 2009 – 2022 along with meta-theoretical content analysis. Findings show that the EU is a normative actor through the sport regulation, sport diplomacy, and competition law tracks, whereas it scores highly when looking at the actorness thesis. By showcasing that the EU actorness thesis and EU normative power concepts are complementary, this analysis contributes to the mainstream EU literature and not least by coupling sport as the prism of appraisal, a novel agenda focusing on EU sport policy and its interaction with other EU literature grounded in the political sciences is left to more meaningfully crystalise.

COURT OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT (CAS), PROCEDURAL JUSTICE, AND ATHLETES’ APPEALS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

2023-09-27T12:44:48+02:00

The kinetic energy that goes into sports competition is healthy and dynamic and should promote goodwill between nations. There is a presumption that sports politics impinges on the judgments of the sports adjudicating body, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in determining appeals in their rulings on the validity of results in international sports competitions. The CAS system for arbitration has rules that follow the lex loci arbitri and its procedures conform to the Swiss Private International law in appeals to the Swiss Federal Tribunal for athletes. The jurisdiction of CAS has to conform to the principles of natural justice when appeals from athletes who have disputes with international sports federations are brought to its attention. This is of particular concern when the national federations of developing countries are involved in sanctioning or supporting athletes who have encountered discrimination. The research question in this paper is whether the CAS exercised procedural justice when the adjudication process involved athletes who had been banned from competition and if the rulings were in accordance with fairness and impartiality. The recourse to the European Court of Human Rights, Article 6.1, has been in sharp focus and the judgments of the court on public hearings and the role of quasi-tribunals need to be structured in accordance with natural justice. This paper argues that the CAS process should increase the scope of procedural justice by granting a fair hearing and by being seen as bias free.

AWARENESS OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA SOCIO-ECONOMIC BENEFITS AS DRIVERS OF SPORT INDUSTRY STAKEHOLDERS′ EXPECTATIONS IN ZIMBABWE

2023-07-21T08:33:47+02:00

Despite the proliferation of free trade agreements worldwide, few studies have examined how the supposed benefits of the agreements are interpreted, understood, and applied by those operating in the sport industry. In light of the recently operationalized African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement and in response to a glaring lack of research into the sport industry’s expectations arising from this Agreement, the present study analysed whether the awareness of the AfCFTA socio-economic benefits can be considered drivers of sports industry stakeholders’ expectations in Zimbabwe. Data analysis deployed descriptive statistical processes with tests for correlation to determine the relationship between the awareness of social and economic benefits of the AfCFTA on the expectations of the sport industry stakeholders. Consequently, the social benefits played a significant relative role when accounting for the stakeholders’ expectations compared to the economic benefits. The study provides insight into how the sport industry in Zimbabwe can take advantage of foreseen or unforeseen developments within its external environment, such as the AfCFTA, whose transversal benefits cut across the sport industry and can address both the country′s and its sport industry's present challenges.

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

2023-12-18T10:21:58+01:00