Nafziger, James A.R. --- "International Sports Law" [2011] ELECD 810; in Nafziger, A.R. James; Ross, F. Stephen (eds), "Handbook on International Sports Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Handbook on International Sports Law

Editor(s): Nafziger, A.R. James; Ross, F. Stephen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847206336

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: International Sports Law

Author(s): Nafziger, James A.R.

Number of pages: 29

Extract:

1 International sports law
James A.R. Nafziger



I. INTRODUCTION
Law, like politics, has accompanied sports competition throughout history, and this law
often has had a unique status. For example, the ancient Olympic Games relied on ad hoc
officials ­ essentially judges ­ who were equipped with special sanctions to enforce both
the rules of the game in a particular contest and the organizational rules of the Games as
a whole. Notice to both the participating city-states and athletes of their obligations took
the form of statues dedicated to Zeus (called zanes) that were financed from fines imposed
on city-states and placed as reminders near the entrance to the stadium.1 Two millennia
later, in the eighteenth century, a court in Tuscany denied relief to owners of property
damaged by stray balls from a traditional ball game. The court reasoned that sports took
priority over torts because regularly scheduled public amusements created legal servitudes
on neighboring property.2 Today, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) struggles with a
similar issue within the European Union, namely the extent to which sports activity is
`special' or has `specificity' and is thus subject only to its own legal regime beyond the
regulatory competence of the European Union.3
The contemporary legal regime governing sports blends normal rules and procedures
transcending sports activity ­ general contract and tort law, employment law, competition
(anti-trust) law, and so on ­ with a distinctive and coherent body of what has come to be
known as `sports law.' The ...