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Katherine Apps writes in this week’s Solicitors’ Journal (2009) Sol J 153/ 42 p10 on 2 recent opinions of Advocate General Sharpston in sporting cases:

-            C 325/08 Olympique Lyonnais v Oliver Bernard and Newcastle United concerning the compensation recoverable by a club which invests in training a footballer, only for him to “jump ship” to another club once the training is complete (and before he had played much for the training club).

-           C-200/08 Commission v France concerning the question as to whether “snowboarding” was a sport separate from Alpine skiing for the purposes of mutual recognition of instructors’ qualitfications.

These cases emphasise the new lack of deference afforded to sporting institutions when facing challenges to their rules.

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