Event Sheffield - Sports and the law

On Wednesday 4 March in the Pennine Theatre, City Campus, a debate was held about the significant impact law can have on sport.

The evening was due to be hosted by BBC Sports editor Mihir Bose but the recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan on the Sri Lankan Cricket team meant he was called back to cover the story in London. Instead John Palmer chaired the discussion with the main question: Is it right a legal challenge can be made to influence sport?

The Panel included Birmingham Solihull Rugby player Alex Davidson, Michele Verroken, Director of Sporting Integrity (formerly in charge of anti-doping in the UK) Sara Friend, Director of Legal Services at the British Olympic Association and Mark Gay, DLA Piper - specialist in Sports Law.

It was an evening packed with interesting discussion and the panellists provided a great insight into how the law has intervened in sport for both good and bad reasons.

Lawyer Mark Gay provided most of the interesting comments having worked for the premier league in their case against west ham in the Carlos Tevez affair and having also worked on the Rio Ferdinand case.

At the start of the Tevez case West Ham were fined £5.5million and Mark described it as “Breathtaking” although he worked to get West Ham punished he said the fine “Was unprecedented at the time.”

The case was recently concluded with Sheffield United being awarded compensation upwards of £15million.

The other topic of popular debate was the Dwain Chambers case. Sara Friend said that Chambers made life difficult for himself in his quest to be able to compete at the Beijing Olympics because he delayed proceedings for so long.

She said Chambers ignored letters for months which could have started his appeal proceedings instead leaving it until 5days before the national trials at which time the judge dismissed any injunction to let him run at the trials as it would have been unfair to disrupt the other athletes competing.

However she went on to say that Chambers could have used to courts to his advantage as he “Could have got an injunction allowing him to run at the Games and then been found guilty and banned afterwards.”

Although Mihir Bose couldn’t make the evening it was still a very good event with many queries being answered and it’s great that hallam university is able to stage such evenings.

By Tom Wright