“Is Sport ‘Special’?” by Stephen Weatherill

Is sport special? Of course it is. A sausage-maker dreams of the profits to be made as the world’s only supplier of sausages, but football clubs need opponents. And there is no entity which dictates the size and shape of sausages, whereas in sport there is typically a governing body which sets the ‘rules of the game’ for the whole world.

But sport is not as special as its governing bodies sometimes claim. They have a powerful thirst for autonomy from political intervention and legal regulation, and, although their case may on occasion be convincing, it may on others be no more than a device to protect entrenched interests. The intellectual heart of sports law is distinguishing between self-interested pleading for autonomy and inst