EU and the legal framework of sports

The topic of this column four weeks ago dealt with whether sport is a social good or a commercial product. I had reproduced an abstract from the speech of the FIBA Europe president Mr. George Vassilakopoulos when the latter had addressed a European Union meeting.

The legal framework of sports within the European Union seems to be high on the agenda of FIBA Europe (FIBA Europe is the main European basketball body and one of the five continental organisations that make up FIBA, the International Basketball Federation). In fact, just this week (on the 30th of October to be exact), FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann and FIBA Europe President George Vassilakopoulos met in Athens to discuss the recent developments in basketball and the renewed efforts to improve the same, above-mentioned, legal framework on sports within the European Union.

The main outcome form this meeting was the acceptance of the fact that in Europe and elsewhere around the world, pressure on basketball's governing bodies (namely FIBA, FIBA Europe and the individual national federations) is increasing. There are many forces, including major clubs and leagues, economical agents and, in some cases, governments, which are trying to intervene in basketball governance at different levels, be they world, continental and/or national.

At the meeting the Independent European Sports Review (IESR) was analysed and reviewed further and as a consequence both FIBA and FIBA Europe expressed their common opinion in a number of conclusions. The first highlighted point is that sport is a social expression. It is not like any other business as it fulfills a unique social, educational and cultural role which benefits society as a whole.

In this context, sport must maintain its autonomy to fully perform these social roles and to maintain its self-regulated decision-making processes. It was agreed that the need for legal certainty and clearer definition of the borderline between governmental and sporting responsibility is essential in order to preserve and develop the sport's role. FIBA and FIBA Europe made it clear that they understand and accept that political institutions expect proper governance in basketball's governing bodies.

The basketball family will take upon itself this responsibility to ensure proper governance in a coordinated way and at all levels. As a result FIBA and FIBA Europe consider that there is no need for the creation of a European Sports Agency as considered in the IESR. FIBA and FIBA Europe will work jointly to ensure that the IESR integrates the views of basketball's governing bodies to achieve a sound agreement between sport and political authorities in Europe for the benefit of the development of sport (and basketball in particular) in Europe and worldwide.

Whilst speaking of FIBA Europe, I would like to take the opportunity to highlight some snippets from an interesting interview made with FIBA Europe’s general secretary Nar Zanolin in the past days.

Mr. Zanolin was asked about his opinion on the undeniable fact that Europe was very successful on the world level in the latest World Championships (both male and female) with Spain managing to become the new world men championships. The reply of the general secretary (and also ex-basketball referee who had officiated the final of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics) was the following, “I think we can point to our European youth tournaments, in which we take a lot of pride. If you look at a lot of the players who ended up with the teams in the top eight (world championships), many of them came through our youth system. By having the European Championships for the U16, U18 and U20 levels every year, it means the players compete at a very high level for a long period of time in the summer and that can only improve things. Plus the fact that in this process the players are just getting better. The elite coaches are getting better. We teach a good brand of basketball, team basketball, and that, I think, has been a key to the success we have had in the past four years. We are very proud of Europe and what we have been able to achieve. Hopefully that will continue.”

Zanolin was also asked about the idea and the main goals of launching the Year of Women basketball. He replied that the major concept was to promote women in basketball, be they players, coaches, referees, administrators or whatever. From an international refereeing point of view, just as an example, FIBA Europe have increased the number from seven to 19 in the space of two years. From the players point of view what FIBA Europe wants to do is increase the participation level. If you have quantity then the quality level is also going to improve. There is also the need for more administrators, more coaches and hopefully through this promotion, in which FIBA Europe is investing a considerable amount of money, something will be achieved. The results will only start to be know in three or four years time. Zanolin stated that hopefully the project will be a good investment.