SportsLa­wyer Sports Law Firm

The use of illi­cit drugs — doping — has become a con­stant com­pa­nion to the world of sports reporting. Whe­ther it is to do with anti-doping legis­la­tion, the qua­lity or timing of doping con­trols, the effec­tivity of the ana­ly­sis, what is expec­ted of the ath­le­tes in respect to their whe­re­abouts, or the com­pe­tence of the arbi­tra­tion tri­bu­nals — the ensuing daily dis­cus­sions on this the­mes are quite diverse and reflect the extent and import­ance of the glo­bal fight against doping in sport.

The broad range of the cur­rent anti-doping regu­la­ti­ons requi­res of ath­le­tes and coa­ches to take responsi­bi­lity, to be care­ful and inform them­sel­ves of the rules and regu­la­ti­ons that govern their sport. Howe­ver, it is also the sport orga­ni­sa­ti­ons that are being asked to ensure that rules and regu­la­ti­ons esta­blis­hed wit­hin their orga­ni­sa­tion are explai­ned and cla­ri­fied to all con­cer­ned in the pro­cess and that they should imple­ment edu­ca­tio­nal pro­grams for ath­le­tes. This would les­sen the dan­ger of rules being bro­ken, mis­ma­nage­ment of pro­ce­du­res, and the sub­se­quent damage for all concerned.

Sport its­elf hangs in the balance. Wit­hout effec­tive anti-doping regu­la­ti­ons and the suc­cess of the glo­bal fight against doping there is a very real pos­si­bi­lity that not just those who watch and spon­sor ath­le­tes of all kinds but also the Tele­vi­sion chan­nels that bring them to the for­e­front of enter­tain­ment may turn away from sport and find other ave­nues of enter­tain­ment that are less con­tro­ver­sial. This would also mean the demise of many future ath­le­tes and a great finan­cial loss to sports orga­ni­sa­ti­ons world­wide.

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Mani­pu­la­tion of sports results, i.e. match fixing, des­troys the inte­grity of sport and beco­mes a serious threat to the con­fi­dence of the public, the media, and those who spon­sor sport when they know the out­come of a match or event is fixed before it has begun. High sta­kes increase the risk of mani­pu­la­tion, with end results stee­red mostly by cri­mi­nal ele­ments rather than being an excit­ing event where the glo­rious uncer­tainty of a sporting event domi­na­tes. If allo­wed to con­ti­nue the num­bers of such ‘mani­pu­la­ted’ events will rise and alongs­ide it the pos­si­ble mani­pu­la­tion of ath­le­tes and mem­bers of sports orga­ni­sa­ti­ons. Nowa­days people bet on all sorts of sports and mani­pu­la­ti­ons are not limited to high per­for­mance sports. They can also be found with youth com­pe­ti­tion bets lea­ving young ath­le­tes espe­cially vulnerable.

The fight against sport mani­pu­la­tion requi­res fast, deci­ded and effec­tive action. Govern­ments and sports orga­ni­sa­ti­ons have alre­ady taken the first steps, in par­ti­cu­lar wit­hin the range of preven­tion and pro­se­cu­tion. Match fixing, ille­gal bet­ting and cor­rup­tion in sport was a cen­tral topic of inte­rest at the UNESCO World Sports Con­fe­rence MINEPS 2013 in Ber­lin, and even the Coun­cil of Europe is working on this aspect. Fur­ther, sports orga­ni­sa­ti­ons, spon­sors, and event orga­nisers have a responsi­bi­lity to accept, imple­ment and com­ply with the rules and regu­la­ti­ons to prevent mani­pu­la­tion and crime and to ensure the enforce­ment of the legal con­se­quen­ces of any cri­mi­nal action.

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Ques­tio­nable and unclear rules and manage­ment wit­hin asso­cia­ti­ons and fede­ra­ti­ons, as well as cor­rupt beha­vior, threa­tens the essen­tial struc­tures of sport. Wit­hout effec­tive rules or com­mu­ni­ca­tion of pro­ce­du­res being given to those people invol­ved in enfor­cing them i.e. offi­ci­als, fede­ra­tion employees, com­pe­ti­tion jud­ges or refe­rees, sport will con­stantly be vul­nera­ble to unethi­cal practices.

A trans­pa­rent and open frame­work of clear and con­cise regu­la­ti­ons, inclu­ding an effec­tive cla­ri­fi­ca­tion to those responsi­ble, will mini­mize this dan­ger and pro­tect the sport as well as all con­cer­ned against any nega­tive con­se­quen­ces.

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No mat­ter what type of sports event, whe­ther inter­na­tio­nal, natio­nal or regio­nal, sport is a spe­cial plat­form for people to be able to expe­ri­ence in so many dif­fe­rent ways, whe­ther it is taking part, watching or even uti­li­zing. At the same time there are also many aspects to take into con­side­ra­tion when orga­ni­sing any sort of sports event from, loo­king at the requi­re­ments for each spe­ci­fic sport, up to taking into account the rules and regu­la­ti­ons wit­hin the rele­vant sport orga­ni­sa­ti­ons, and uti­li­zing and pro­tec­ting the rights of all con­nec­ted wit­hin the sports event — in par­ti­cu­lar with regard to pro­mo­tion and media rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Alongs­ide this there are also poten­tial risks at any event, which can be cau­sed by the forces of nature, or any vio­lent out­bursts wit­hin the spec­ta­tors, and need to be considered.

A suc­cess­ful event and its eco­no­mic suc­cess depend more often than not on details in the pre­pa­ra­tion. Good and legally secure plan­ning is para­mount to a smooth ope­ra­tio­nal flow avo­iding any cause for upsets or distress and will con­tri­bute, at least in regard to orga­ni­sa­tion, to the suc­cess of the event. Howe­ver, it is impe­ra­tive that orga­ni­sa­ti­ons adopt a proac­tive stra­tegy to pro­tect their spon­sors from ‘ambush mar­ke­ters’ in order to secure the eco­no­mic suc­cess of their event and all rele­vant risks are dealt with and, when indi­ca­ted, insu­red before said event.

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Spon­so­ring is one at the most fre­quently used means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion of busi­ness enter­pri­ses. Sport spon­so­ring takes one of the most domi­nant posi­ti­ons. It is lin­ked with so many cha­rac­te­ristics that are part of life its­elf i.e. ten­sion, emo­ti­ons, pas­sion, team spi­rit and fair play. If the goal is to create a posi­tive image trans­fer then one of the best ways to do this is by spon­so­ring sport events, the per­fect con­text of enter­prise com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Unfor­t­u­na­tely sport spon­so­ring can also be a risk, in par­ti­cu­lar cases of doping, mani­pu­la­tion or vio­lence which would damage that posi­tive image trans­fer, along with ambush mar­ke­ting, which could lead to loss of reve­nue for sponsors.

Sport spon­sors can pro­tect them­sel­ves against the risks invol­ved by nego­tia­ting, with the fede­ra­ti­ons, orga­ni­sa­ti­ons or ath­le­tes, a con­tract safe­guar­ding their spon­sor­ship, which those invol­ved are then obli­ga­ted to observe. Fur­ther­more sport spon­sors must also have the pos­si­bi­lity should there be a pro­ven case of doping, mani­pu­la­tion, vio­lence, or ambush mar­ke­ting, to be able to with­draw their spon­sor­ship wit­hout loss.

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Sport pro­mi­ses ten­sion, pas­sion, emo­ti­ons and the­re­fore good ratings with an audi­ence that covers all age groups. Sport is always in demand as con­tent for the media, both for the large TV-transmitters and for new media. But not all kinds of sport or com­pe­ti­ti­ons are directly in demand from media com­pa­nies added to which the trans­mis­sion times are often very short, as sport is in direct com­pe­ti­tion with other pro­gram choices, at least at those broad­cas­ters with full cover­age and a large net­work range.

Natu­rally almost every kind of sport is inte­res­ted in offe­ring tele­vi­sed images of their events to a lar­ger audi­ence, in order to bring the sport to fans near and far, incre­a­sing its visi­bi­lity and the­re­fore making it inte­res­ting to pos­si­ble adver­ti­sing part­ners. Should this be a pos­si­bi­lity it is import­ant before begin­ning such a part­nership to nego­tiate rele­vant points i.e. trans­mis­sion times, war­ran­ties, rep­re­sen­ta­tion pos­si­bi­li­ties, along with an agree­ment of co-operation (con­tract) and the ins­ti­ga­tion of any necessary licen­ces explai­ned cle­arly and concisely.

Unfor­t­u­na­tely not all rep­re­sen­ta­ti­ons are desi­ra­ble or legal in the media and if any per­so­nal or adver­ti­sing rights are dama­ged by reports, cam­paigns or adver­ti­sing con­tri­bu­ti­ons by the media then fast legal pro­tec­tion is necessary in order to prevent fur­ther reporting to limit the damage and/or ins­ti­gate a claim for damages.

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