Queens Park Rangers Vice Chairman Amit Bhatia has become the latest person within football to call for video replays to be introduced. "I'm convinced it's time to allow the challenge system in football", he Tweeted, reported The Guardian. "We have to have some kind of video replay system so that harsh decisions can be reviewed. So much is at stake in every game. Mistakes are made. Decisions are difficult and that's fine, but why not allow those difficult decisions to be reviewed? One challenge per half per manager wouldn't slow the game down by any more than 30 seconds. I think it's got to happen. Every fan and player in the land would appreciate a fair review of a difficult decision. It's not rocket science. And my rant isn't about today's decision. It's a general observation about football and applies to us all who want fairer decisions."

This is not the first time that clubs have advocated video replays (as this blog posting proves), and I have been arguing for their introduction for a long time. Allowing the manager or captain to make a limited number of challenges to decisions made during a match would impact the game little, and most clubs already have the technology in place to do this. FIFA's argument is that to allow video replays would ruin the flow of the game, however I can't see how an instant TV replay the minute the ball next goes out of play would delay the game any more than appeals to the referee by outraged players. As I have recently pointed out, FIFA is driven by generating money for football and I suspect that it cannot see any commercial value in mandating a system where the technology to be used already exists. Compare this with goal-line technology, where FIFA has a number of companies queuing up to become an official supplier.

Put simply, if Bhatia is to be successful in gaining FIFA support for video replays, he needs to gain support for a system that can generate commercial value for the game, and pitch it to FIFA. Perhaps a system could be introduced similar to that used in Australian rugby league, where companies pay to sponsor video replays. Otherwise FIFA will continue to pursue its expensive and ineffective goal-line technology solution, which is not 'for the good of the game'.

 Andy Brown

FIFA’s motto is ‘For the Good of the Game’. However, I am increasingly thinking that this should be changed to ‘For the Good of Our Own, and Big Business’. Not as snappy, but perhaps more realistic.

Firstly came a damning letter from a number of professional journalists, who have refused an offer from FIFA to become involved with FIFA’s interestingly-titled Independent Governance Committee. Basically, they have refused to become involved because they allege that the Committee is far from independent. Even more interestingly, they also accuse FIFA President Sepp Blatter of trying to personally delay publication of the report by Zug Investigating Magistrate Thomas Hildbrand into kickback corruption at FIFA, which they allege ‘destroys’ his claims to have been cleared by the investigation. ‘We are advised that there is no legal impediment to Blatter putting his copy online today’, reads the letter, which is contrary to FIFA’s claims that the document cannot be released due to legal measures taken by one of the parties involved. The Canton of Zug agrees with the journalists, and has ordered the release of the document. All of this smacks of an organisation trying to protect its own.

FIFA has also been trying to protect its sponsorship deal with Budweiser by forcing the organisers of the Rio 2014 World Cup to break Brazilian law by allowing the sale of beer in its stadiums. This is understandable, as FIFA needs to protect the interest of its sponsor, Budweiser. However, FIFA also wants to change a Brazilian law that mandates half-price tickets for students and OAPs. There is also a reason for this – FIFA now sees ‘For the Good of the Game’ to mean that cash is more important to the football family than social responsibility, and is willing to take money from pensioners and students.

FIFA consistently places its need for ever-more cash above its responsibility of choosing what is best for football. As I have pointed out before, the only logical reason for FIFA’s insistence on goal-line technology when video referees can do the same job is that it sees a system it can license to companies for money.

Perhaps it is time to ask whether FIFA is for the good of the game, or for the good of itself.

Andy Brown

Cricketers Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt lost appeals against their sentences for 'spot-fixing' during the August 2010 England v Pakistan test on 23 November, whilst Mohammed Asif announced his intention to appeal his conviction. Amir was jailed for six months, Asif for one year and Butt for 30 months by Southwark Crown Court on 3 November.

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A report presented to a 20 November World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Foundation Board meeting will determine how the British Olympic Association (BOA) will defend Byelaw 7.4, which bans athletes suspended for doping for over six months from Great Britain Olympic team selection.

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The integrity and impartiality of India's National Doping Agency (NADA) has been questioned after players and teams were disqualified from the second Kabaddi World Cup, 1-20 November.

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The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recently ruled that Rule 45 of the Olympic Charter - which bans 'convicted' dopers from competing at the next edition of the Olympic Games following expiration of their suspension - is 'invalid and unenforceable'. Paul J. Greene, an Attorney with Preti Flaherty Beliveau & Pachios LLP, examines the reasoning behind the CAS decision, who stands to benefit from it and the impact it will have on other sporting bodies with similar rules in place.

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Southsea pub landlady Karen Murphy took on the Football Association Premier League (FAPL) after it prosecuted her for using a decoder card to screen Premier League football at her pub, rather than paying for a commercial licence to screen the games. Vanessa Barnett, a Partner with Charles Russell LLP, examines the background to the case, the reasons for referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union and the implications it has for the broadcasting of sport within the EU.

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The National Collegiate Athletic Association has recently approved a new transgender 'policy' to clarify the eligibility of transgender student athletes in US University sport. Shawn Markus Crincoli, an Associate Professor of Law with Touro College, examines whether it could be subject to challenge and assesses whether the NCAA 'policy' could provide a blueprint for other sporting organisations looking to implement a transgender policy.

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Brazilian player Ilson Pereira Dias Junior refused to extend his contract with Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk, arguing that a clause in his contract obliging him to extend by one year unless the club elected to sell him in the first two years of his contact was illegal. Adam Whyte, an Abogado with Ruiz-Huerta & Crespo, examines the Court of Arbitration for Sport's (CAS) reasoning in deciding this case, comparing the methodology in awarding compensation with that used in other CAS cases involving FIFA's Article 17, such as Webster, Matuzalem and El-Hadary.

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At time of press, Manchester City were deciding what action should be taken against Carlos Tevez after an apparent refusal to take the field following instruction from club manager Roberto Mancini. Katie Simmonds, Head of Sports Law at Burlingtons Legal LLP, examines the difficulties that football clubs face in taking action against players during contractual disputes.

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The recent decision to allow the Olympic Flame to travel through Albert Square, the setting for the BBC's fictional soap opera EastEnders, is a perfect representation of the London 2012 Olympic ethos. EastEnders and Albert Square are a fictional creation based in Borehamwood, a posh area in Hertfordshire that has no connection to the East End of London, where the drama is set. The London 2012 Olympics is increasingly becoming a drama created by executives located elsewhere (Canary Wharf) that has no connection to the area in which it is set.

The Olympic Flame that passes through the fictional East End borough of Walford will not even be the true Olympic Flame, at least as far as tradition dictates. London 2012 will represent the first time that the Olympic Torch Relay does not pass from the previous host city to the new host city on foot, the idea being to pass the symbolic 'Olympic Spirit' from city to city in the form of fire. The International Olympic Committee banned Olympic Torch relays following hijacking of the Torch before the Beijing 2008 Olympics.

Now I know all of this is supposed to be a bit of fun, but London 2012 organisers seem blind to the fact that forging links between a fictional soap opera and an Olympic Games that was originally billed as being for the East End of London could appear patronising. Firstly, London Olympic organisers announced that London's Olympic Park would share the E20 postcode of fictional Albert Square (why not E2012?). Now they are granting the privilege of featuring the flame to a soap opera that turned down the chance to relocate to the Olympic Park, slap bang in the middle of the area the soap is supposed to represent.

"There was the chance for the BBC to show genuine commitment to the East End - an area it has harvested for audiences for decades", said London Mayor Boris Johnson. "I'm astonished that the boss class don't see the obvious advantages of rooting a popular drama in an area it claims to portray". Johnson's sentiment is correct, yet his comments are almost comically ironic when you consider that London 2012 organisers have done much the same thing by taking many key Olympic events away from East London. After Badminton and Rhythmic Gymnastics were taken away from the East End, the final straw came last year, when London Boroughs sought to take legal action against the organisers of London 2012 for moving the marathon route from East London to finish on The Mall in central London, making the 2012 marathon the first in Olympic history not to finish in the Olympic stadium. London 2012 had just appointed the organisers of the London Marathon to plan the route. Guess where the London Marathon finishes? Road cycling will also not come anywhere near East London…I could go on, but I don't want you to get too bored…

London 2012 Chair Seb Coe welcomed the move. "Today's announcement is a great addition to the Olympic Torch Relay Route", he said. "I'm sure the people of Walford will now start planning their celebrations to welcome the Flame to Albert Square". They won't, because they don't exist, and neither does the connection between the London 2012 Olympics and improving the lives of people in the East End. If you search on the internet for 'London 2012 Games making a difference in East London', the top link is a story about how volunteers from East London helped clean up rivers within the Olympic Park for free. They will continue to help by spending money they don't have in the vast Westfield shopping complex in Stratford (the company could not even bring itself to change its name to Eastfield…) and are supposed not to notice that few people from the Olympic Boroughs have actually been given jobs on the site.

I have nothing against London hosting the Olympics, but it's time to drop the pretence that this is about improving the lives of people in London and admit that it's an exercise in making money. However, I expect that the fiction will continue long after the Games are over.

Andy Brown

Say what you like about Ken Bates, but the former Chelsea Chairman is an astute businessman and knows how to protect assets. Bates famously bought Chelsea for £1 in 1982 after previous owners had sold Stamford Bridge to property developers Marler Estates, who subsequently went bankrupt. Chelsea Pitch Owners was created in 1992 and sold shares for £100 each, limited to 100 shares per person to prevent one person from ever gaining control of the company. In 1997, CPO bought the Stamford Bridge freehold and pitch for approximately £10 million, the idea being if supporters owned Stamford Bridge, it could never again be sold to property developers, thereby securing the future of the club.

In doing this, Bates created - perhaps unintentionally - the most effective and sustainable method of protecting a club against being asset stripped. The Football League and Premier League use the FA’s Fit and Proper Persons test to prevent unscrupulous owners taking money out of the game. However, as has been proved this week, granting supporters ownership of their club's pitch is more effective in protecting a club's heritage than any other method that has been devised recently. Chelsea, which has called Stamford Bridge home since the club's foundation in 1905, had planned to move as capacity is constrained by property and railway lines which encircle the ground, preventing it from a large expansion beyond its capacity of 41,841, which the club argues hinders its development by forcing it to rely on cash investment by owner, Roman Abramovic. However, the club failed to secure the 75% approval required from Chelsea Pitch Owners and so will be forced to remain at its home.

The Premier League, Football League, club owners and supporters groups should take note of developments at Stamford Bridge. Recent events involving Plymouth Argyle and Rangers - and a survey suggesting that fraud is still widespread at football clubs - suggest that controls designed to protect clubs might not be working as they should. A better way to safeguard the future of clubs could be an entry condition requiring clubs to offer supporters the chance to purchase their club's pitch – and there is no harm in doing this, since supporters will almost always vote in favour of proposals that are in the best interests of their club. Such a requirement would prevent clubs from moving out of their historic homes when fans are against it and - more importantly - would prevent unscrupulous owners from asset-stripping a club by selling a club's home for profit, a situation that Brighton & Hove Albion supporters will be able to tell you all about. Supporters groups should pressure new owners to implement such schemes, as failure to do so on the part of a new owner would say a great deal about their future intentions for the club. 

Events since then have also been interesting. Chelsea's local council, Hammersmith & Fulham, has issued a statement pledging to work with the club to increase the capacity of the ground. The statement mentioned how proud the borough was to host three Premier League football clubs, indicating that they are willing to be lenient with planning requests in order to ensure that Chelsea can increase its capacity whilst remaining at Stamford Bridge. This suggests that when there is no other option other than to redevelop - as in Chelsea's case - clubs and local councils are forced to cooperate and find a solution that will enable their local club to continue to be successful - which is what all parties involved in such discussions want anyway.

Finally, those readers who have continued to the end of this article will be rewarded with advice to ignore my opening statement. Don't say exactly what you like about Ken Bates. He is aware that there is a law called libel, and he is not afraid to use it!

Andy Brown

Should Dwain Chambers - and other British athletes facing lifetime bans from the Olympics -compete in the London Olympics next year? Opinion is divided in sporting circles. Some fellow athletes say he should not; whilst others say that he should be allowed to do so. Maurice Greene, a fellow sprinter, is in the ‘no’ camp; whereas Paula Radcliffe, the marathon world record holder, is firmly in the ‘yes’ camp, characterising the ban as being unfair, particularly as he owned up to the doping offence!

This debate regarding the British Olympic Association (BOA) bye-law 25, which imposes an automatic ban for life from the Olympics on any British Athlete who has been suspended from competition as a result of being ‘convicted’ of a doping offence has been sparked off again, this time by a landmark ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), handed down on 6 October 2011, in the case of the American 400m Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt. So, what was this case and what did the CAS decide?

Following a joint request for arbitration filed by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding the validity of the ‘Regulations Regarding Participation in the Olympic Games - Rule 45 of the Olympic Charter’ (also known as the ‘Osaka Rule’), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued the following decision:

‘The IOC Executive Board’s June 27, 2008 decision prohibiting athletes who have been suspended for more than six months for an anti-doping rule violation from participating in the next Olympic Games following the expiration of their suspension is invalid and unenforceable’.

The CAS Arbitral Panel, composed of Prof. Richard H. McLaren (Canada), President, Mr David W. Rivkin (USA) and Mr Michele Bernasconi (Switzerland), came to the conclusion that the ‘Osaka Rule’ was more properly characterised as a disciplinary sanction, rather than a pure condition of eligibility to compete in the Olympic Games.

Such a disciplinary sanction is not in compliance with Article 23.2.2 of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADA Code), which provides that the Signatories of the Code may not introduce provisions that change the effect of periods of ineligibility provisions of the WADA Code, because it adds further ineligibility to the WADA Code anti-doping sanction after that sanction has been served.

The Panel further held that, because the IOC made the WADA Code a part of its own governing statute (the Olympic Charter, under Rule 44), the ‘Osaka Rule’ is in fact a violation of the IOC’s own Statute and is therefore invalid and unenforceable.

The CAS Panel also emphasised that if the IOC wanted to exclude athletes who have been sanctioned for doping from the Olympic Games, it could propose an amendment to the World Anti-Doping Code, which would allow other Signatories to consider such an amendment and possibly to adopt it. If so, no ne bis in idem issue (prohibition against double jeopardy) would be raised, as the ineligibility would be part of a single sanction. Moreover, the principle of proportionality could be met because only one adjudicatory body would be in position to assess the proper sanction for certain behaviour, taking into consideration the overall effect of the sanction to be imposed.

It has been reported that David Howman, the Director General of WADA, has written to the BOA asking them to review and reconsider their rule. However Lord Moynihan, the President of the BOA and a former UK Sports Minister, maintains that it perfectly valid and enforceable, claiming that it is an eligibility matter. How can this position can be maintained in the light of the CAS decision in the LaShawn Merritt case, where the IOC argued that the so-called ‘Osaka’ rule was an eligibility one and the CAS held that it was a disciplinary sanction? I would argue that the BOA rule imposes an additional sanction on British athletes that have fallen foul of the doping rules, been suspended and have served their time only to find that they face an additional sanction neither foreseen nor approved by the WADA Code, which after all is – or at least should be – the sole body dealing with all aspects of doping in sport. This additional sanction is clearly the effect of the BOA rule, and this effect is not affected by the fact that it is possible to appeal to the BOA for the rule to be lifted in certain cases, according to their particular circumstances. Equally, the fact that the BOA claims that 39 out of 42 such appeals have been successful is irrelevant, if not only for the fact that in three of those cases, the athletes concerned have suffered a double penalty, that is, double jeopardy, which is illegal because no one can be punished twice for the same offence.

Apart from the above legal arguments, not to mention the clear possibility - in my opinion - of the BOA rule being held by a Court to be an unreasonable ‘restraint of trade’ for ‘elite’ athletes (those who earn their livelihoods through the practice of their sports) and, therefore, void and unenforceable, there also are some sporting considerations that should be taken into account. David Millar, the former cycling world champion who is also affected by the BOA rule, argues that it does not encourage the rehabilitation of offenders who have served their time, or allow for any kind of education of athletes concerning the taking of performance-enhancing drugs. There is also another sporting consideration, and that is discrimination. Apparently, according to the International Association of Athletics Federations, there are at least 83 non-British athletes not affected by the BOA rule who will now be able to compete in the 2012 London Olympics as a result of the CAS ruling. Under the IOC Charter, discrimination of any kind is unlawful! After all, sport is – or, at least, should be – a matter of fairness and athletes competing on a so-called ‘level playing field’.

In my view, the BOA has an overwhelming case to answer and should scrap their rule, particularly in the light of the clear decision from the CAS in the LaShawn Merritt doping case.

Professor Ian Blackshaw

TMC Asser International Sports Law Centre, The Hague

ian.blackshaw@orange.fr

Sport can protect the value of its broadcasting rights following the Karen Murphy ruling by using new licensing methods, concluded a Briefing organised on 20 October by World Sports Law Report and Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP.

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British athletes could face exclusion from the London 2012 Olympics if the British Olympic Association (BOA) doesn't either drop or place under review its ban on convicted dopers from competing in the Olympics.

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Great Britain's Gambling Commission launched a consultation on 7 October investigating whether using inside information for betting constitutes misuse of that information, and whether further safeguards are needed to protect sport's integrity.

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The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL - German football league) has recently announced that it intends to set up a licensing regime for the commercial use of its fixture lists, allowing it to recoup money from unauthorised users, such as gambling operators. This decision must be seen in light of the fact that the regulation of gambling in Germany remains uncertain and confused. Gregor Lentze, Founding Partner of Lentze Stopper Rechtsanwälte, examines whether the protection of such fixture lists from commercial use can be justified under German law and outlines the current status of German sports betting laws.

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The Professional Football Compensation Committee is used by the Football Association Premier League and the Football League to determine compensation for training young players*. Tim Copplestone, a Solicitor with Clarke Willmott LLP, explains how it works.

Italy became one of the first countries to pass legislation making doping a criminal offence. Lucio Colantuoni and Elisa Brigandì of the Sports Law Research Center in Milan examine what constitutes a criminal offence of doping under Italian law and how this contrasts with what sporting regulations consider to be a doping offence. They examine previous attempts to legislate in doping and explore inconsistencies between the criminal offence of doping and sporting regulations on doping.

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Whilst some anti-doping organisations are now working closely with law enforcement organisations, many have yet to take this step. Catherine Ordway, a Sport & Anti-Doping Consultant who has worked on collaboration with law enforcement with ASADA, UKAD and CCES, examines how anti-doping authorities can engage with law enforcement through the use of information sharing, memorandums of understanding, outsourcing and - crucially - engage with authorities that may have priorities other than doping in sport.

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