76002 Sports Law

Sport is a prominent feature of our national culture. In the past, law seemed to have little to do with sport, however, with the growth of sporting professionalism, the internationalisation of sport, media influences, sporting sponsorship and high-profile sporting cases, no longer can sport claim to be quarantined from the impact of the law.

In this subject students examine, to varying depths, such broad topics as drugs in sport, crime and personal injury in sport, the sporting contract, marketing and sponsorship, employment and industrial relations, discrimination in sport, dispute settlement and sporting tribunals, insurance and risk management, sport and taxation, anti-competitive practices in sport, and business and organisational structures in sport.

Any sporting event may potentially generate a number of legal concerns, including: what rights of appeal exist for non-selected athletes, to whom might a team doctor owe a duty of care, whether athletes are illegally exploited by major sporting organisations, when a player might be criminally charged for violent acts in the field of play, the legal status of sporting disciplinary tribunals, how a sporting organisation might deal with claims of discrimination (for example, on the basis of pregnancy), whether coaches and clubs are legally liable for the actions of their athletes, whether it is legal to exclude an athlete or member of the public from a sporting venue, and when a referee might be legally liable in tort.

We consider the law as it relates to sport in Australia and several areas of international interest.