Background

The Autonomy of Sport in Europe

As from the end of the 19th century, sports associations have, in most European countries, enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy from government, thanks to national legislation guaranteeing “freedom of association”. Deriving from the ancient Greek words “autos” (= self) and nomos (= law) the exact meaning of the word  “autonomy” indicates the right and the capacity to define legal norms for oneself; concerning associations, this privilege refers to the possibility to draw up “statutes” for themselves. In a modern state governed by the rule of law this concession is of course limited by the confines of public legislation. Accordingly, a government would, for example, certainly intervene if a boxing federation were to adopt a ruling stipulating that a match should be fought until the death of one of the participants.

What the “privilege of autonomy” for associations thus entails is that non-governmental, non-profit-making sport organisations may:

  1. Establish, amend and interpret rules appropriate to their sport freely, without undue political or economical influence.
  2. Choose their leaders democratically, without interference by states or third parties.
  3. Obtain adequate funds from public or other sources, without disproportionate obligations and to use these funds to achieve objectives and carry on activities chosen without severe external constraints.
  4. Negotiate with the public authorities legitimate standards proportionate to the achievement of these objectives.

This right to autonomy for sports associations is moreover built into the pyramidal structure of sport federations, where the power to define “sporting rules and regulations” lies within the capacity of international federations. In this context, three kinds of sports rules can be identified: the “rules of the game”, “club rules” and “competition rules”.

The “rules of the game” are the technical rules according to which a given sport is played whereas the “club rules or statutes” are those adopted by each non-governmental sports organisation to regulate its own functioning, such as to determine who can become a member. Finally, the “competition rules” are all the rules that govern competitions organised for a given sport over a given period.

For the administration of this whole body of rules and regulations issued by sports organisations, referred to as the “lex sportiva”, in 1983 the Olympic Movement established the Court of Arbitration for sport (CAS). Thus, the autonomy of sport associations is set within a vertical framework of international sport federations, where the former in the majority of the cases enjoy a high degree of internal autonomy, provided that they comply with the rules laid down by the International Federations on a global level. Apart from the vertical network, sport associations are also integrated into a horizontal structure where they benefit from autonomy with respect to their corresponding public authority, for example a club in relation to its municipal sports department or a European Federation in relation to the European Commission.

In conclusion, the autonomy of sports is one of the fundamental criteria for a modern model of sport and a valuable principle to be defended within the European Union’s legislative framework, within which the fundamental principle of the “specificity of sport” has already been acknowledged in several documents such as the White Paper on Sport and Art. 165 of the Lisbon Treaty. 


 Background