3 10 October 2005

News:

Italian State Laws which make doping a criminal offence have become the centre of controversy in the lead up to Turin's Winter Olympics in February 2006.

The Indian Government has ordered rights holders to share all cricket matches which feature India with Prasar Bharti ,the free to air public broadcaster. Information and Broadcasting Minister Jaipal Reddy announced the changes after the 19 October Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the move.

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) were heading for talks on October 27 in a bid to resolve their dispute over compensation for clubs whose players had been on the Lions tour.

Features:

Has "Keep Cricket Free", the recently launched campaign to put cricket back onto free terrestrial TV, got it all wrong? The campaign is spearheaded, unsurprisingly, by a former Channel 4 director, David Brook, and has found support amongst former cricket greats (Viv Richards among them), current MPs and a former Prime Minister well known for his love of cricket (Sir John Major), although its website claims (only) 11,000 acknowledged supporters.

Conflicts between national teams and clubs over control of players is common across sports. Adrian Rubenstein, Head of Litigation at Couchman Harrington Associates looks at the recent Court actions involving both rugby and football and how other sports have attempted to resolve the issues.

The role of agents in transfers can be a murky business. James Hennigan, a solicitor with Hammonds, looks at the case of Jacques Lichtenstein v Clube Atletico Mineiro 29 June 2005 (unreported) which gives a useful insight into judicial thinking into the enforceability of agency agreements.

Sporting related business activity represents more than 3 per cent of world trade. Little wonder that sporting disputes are on the increase. Ian Blackshaw looks at how such disputes, particularly those relating to domain names, can be resolved without going to court.

The funding of sport through the National Lottery has made dramatic changes to the UK's sporting landscape. Michael Townley, a partner of Athletes1Legal, looks at the evolution of lottery funding expenditure and asks whether the drive for professionalism has lost sight of the Lottery's original purpose.