Sports Arbitration Conference

Sparks

From the FIS site:

Over 150 people including 30 representatives of sporting organisations attended Saturday’s 10th February conference on Sports Arbitration held by the Bar Council of Ireland in conjunction with the Federation of Irish Sports.

The rest were barristers and solicitors. Somewhat intimidating seeing how much money is spent on legal cases by NGBs rather than on sport, but then, that was the point of the conference...

The conference was chaired by Irish Olympic Gold Medallist Ronnie Delaney and speakers included Darren Bailey, Head of Legal at the International Rugby Board, David Casserly of CAS, Micheal O’Connell B.L., President of the Federation of Irish Sports, Derek Brennan and Ercus Stewart S.C. Chairman of Just Sport Ireland.

All speakers emphasised the need for sporting disputes to be resolved quickly and as cheaply as possible. Michael O’Connell B.L, speaking on the GAA’s Dispute Resolution Authority (the “DRA”) mentioned that recognition of these two factors together with the desire to keep disputes away from the courts had been behind the establishment of the DRA.

Ercus Stewart spoke about similar concerns being the driving force behind the creation of Just Sport Ireland (“JSI”). He emphasised the unsuitability of the courts as a means of resolving sporting disputes and promoted the dispute resolution facilities offered by JSI as a more appropriate forum for the resolution of such disputes.

JSI offers both mediation and arbitration as a means of resolving sporting disputes. It was established by the Federation of Irish Sport in recognition of the need for sport to have a quick and cost effective means of resolving disputes in order to protect already scarce resources.

JSI is open to all sporting organisations and participants provided recourse to JSI is allowed for in the internal rules of an organisation. It will cover all types of disputes except for doping and employment disputes. Parties may only seek arbitration by JSI if all the steps provided for in an organisations own internal dispute resolution have been exhausted.

The need for JSI was emphasised by representatives of a number of sporting organisations at the conference who complained about the significant impact of legal fees, spent in trying to resolve such disputes, on the annual budget of their organisation.

Larry Fenlon of Leman solicitors speaking on the conference said: - “Lawyers are typically very good at speaking to other lawyers. What made the conference so constructive was the number of representatives of sporting organisations present and the contribution they made.”

Derek Brennan, in response to questions from a number of those sporting representatives, acknowledged that the launch of JSI was indeed just one step in an overall process. He highlighted that the Federation of Irish Sports would shortly be announcing a series of seminars and workshops on JSI and also on best practice in relation to internal dispute resolution procedures within sporting organisations.

JSI is open for business. At the moment, any person interested in making use of the facilities offered by JSI can make contact through Sarah O’Connor of the Federation of Irish Sports by email, at sarah.oconnor@irishsports.ie and by telephone, at (01) 625 1155 or 086 804 8446.

The whole matter of arbitration in sport disputes is a pretty serious one. Several of the sporting NGBs are looking into aligning their internal processes with the JSI model and using it as the final court of appeal, which can only be a good thing because it's cleaner, simpler, faster and cheaper than the High Court.

It's just a shame we can't get licencing issues into them

ironsight

As you rightly point out the whole issue of arbitration in sport disputes is a important one.
this may be of benifit at a later stage to many clubs throughout the country making arbitration cheeper than having to resort to the courts system.

And as Sparks again correctly points out It is indeed a shame we can't get them involved in the licencing issue. However this may change if given time.