With a Foreword by Dr Michal Krejza, Head of Sport Unit, Directorate-General for Education and Culture, European Commission, Brussels
Much has changed since the publication of Professional Sport in the EU: Regulation and Re-regulation (edited by Andrew Caiger and Simon Gardiner, The Hague, T.M.C. Asser Press 2000). The present book explores new territory and its scope and tone reflect the maturity of the discipline of EU sports law and policy. The book seeks to balance contributions from established authorities and the best of the new generation of sports law and policy academics.
New theoretical insights are revealed which accompany in particular two further sections dealing first with governance and regulatory issues (also including freedom of movement and competition law issues) and second with questions of representation. The issue of the representation of stakeholders within sports governance structures (Social Dialogue between employers/clubs and employees/players) is arguably the most significant development in the last decade and the inclusion of the word 'Representation' in the title is merited. Contributions on anti-doping, football hooliganism and sports betting are added to the book.
The editing team consisted of Simon Gardiner, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom, Richard Parrish, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, United Kingdom, and Robert Siekmann, ASSER International Sports Law Centre, The Hague, The Netherlands.
This book appears in the ASSER International Sports Law Series, under the editorship of Robert Siekmann andJanwillem Soek.
I am honoured to have been invited to write the foreword to this book. Since the publi- tion of Professional Sport in the EU: Regulation and Re-regulation (edited by Andrew Caiger and Simon Gardiner, T.M.C. Asser Press 2000), there have been a number of dev- opments in the European Union in sports law, both in the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. The most significant of these was probably the adoption by the Commission of the White Paper on Sport on 11 July 2007. The White Paper takes stock of the acquis communautaire - the rather prodigious body of European Law including judgements and preliminary rulings of the ECJ - in the sports field and sets out the position of the Commission on three significant aspects of European sport: its societal role, its economic dimension, and its governance. The White Paper also contains concrete proposals for further EU action as part of an Action Plan named after Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.
