This volume deals with the non-governmental part of international sports law. Included are basic documents of an institutional nature, i.e. the Statutes/Constitutions, etc., of universal sports organisations. Two main categories of universal sports organisations are represented in this work: the international `umbrella' organisations, not limited to any single sport, and the so-called international sports federations which are organised for each branch of sport, insofar as they concern Olympic sports. The collection of documents was realised within the framework of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut's research project on international sports law and with the cooperation of the International Olympic Committee. It provides an invaluable source of reference for both legal practitioners, including courts dealing with sports-related cases, and the academic world. With the increase in public interest in the legal aspects of sports, this collection will prove a timely and welcome addition to the scarce collections of materials already available.

Statutes, rules and regulations.

Given the impact that successive court rulings have had on the organisation of the sports movement in the past 15 years, the autonomy of non-governmental sports organisations has become a highly topical concern in Europe. It is also closely related to the issue of governance, the subject of previous Council of Europe studies. The Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) decided to explore the concept of autonomy in greater depth by studying the conceptual, political, legal, economic and psycho-sociological aspects of the subject. This study was carried out at the request of the EPAS by the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP) on the basis of a questionnaire sent to public authorities in charge of sport and to national and international umbrella sports organisations. In addition to an analysis of the data obtained, documents produced by public authorities and sports organisations on this emerging issue are presented. This study contributes to a better understanding of the concept of autonomy and offers a clear picture of the issues involved.

The book is an introduction to sports law, in particular International (worldwide) and European (EU) sports law. The chapters are all put in the perspective of the innovative sports law doctrine that is developed and presented in the opening chapter on what sports law is. After a general coverage of the core concept of “sport specificity” (that is whether private sporting rules and regulations can be justified notwithstanding they are not in conformity with public law), the book covers the following specific main themes of International and European Sports Law (capita selecta): comparative sports law; competition law and sport; the collective selling of TV rights; sports betting; Social Dialogue in sport; sport and nationality; professional football transfer rules; anti-doping law in sport; transnational football hooliganism in Europe; international sports boycotts. In this book association football (“soccer”) is the sport that is by far most on the agenda. It is the largest sport in the world and most popular all over the globe. The elite football in Europe is a day-to-day commercialized and professionalized industry, which makes it a perfect subject of study from an EU Law perspective.

Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport.

The important theme “What is Sports Law?” was the topic of the international Conference on “The Concept of Lex Sportiva Revisited”, which took place in Jakarta in late 2010. Academics and practitioners are still in debate to agree on this concept as is evident in this book. This book not only contains the worked out contributions of this Conference, but also other related chapters on the subject. It produces a reassessment of the content of Sports Law and its terminology keeping a close eye on the current literature. The book appears in the ASSER International Sports Law Series, under the editorship of Prof. Dr. Robert Siekmann, Dr. Janwillem Soek and Marco van der Harst LL.M.

The issue of doping has been the most widely discussed problem in sports ethics and is one of the most prominent issues across sports studies, the sports sciences and their constituent disciplines. This book adds uniquely to that catalogue of discourses by focusing on extant anti-doping policy and doping practices from a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives (specifically ethical, legal, and social scientific). With contributions from a world-class team of scholars and legal practitioners from the UK, Europe and North America, the book explores key contemporary issues such as: sports medicine international doping policy the whereabouts system the criminalization of doping privacy rights, gene doping and ethics imperfection in doping test procedures steroid use in the general population. Doping and Anti-Doping Policy in Sport offers an important critique of contemporary anti-doping policy and is essential reading for any advanced student, researcher or policy maker with an interest in this vital issue.