Money pushes sports to extremes. As the rewards for success grow, so does the pressure, with sportspeople pushing themselves ever harder. In equestrian sports, this can mean pushing the horse as well, too often to the point of abuse. This article discusses the beautiful side of equestrianism as well as its darker side, which is a bitter reality for many competition horses. It sets out a comparison of legal standards for equine animal welfare (at the level of international law, EU law and national laws) as well as those coming from sports laws. It also examines dependencies between animal protection rules under EU law and animal protection rules under the laws of individual EU Member States concerning equestrian sports. It aims to answer the questions of whether equestrian sports constitute a general exemption to their being considered animal abuse and on what grounds this exemption might be changed in the future.

When sport gets complicated, which it tends to do these days, it's time to call on the specialists, such as sports law lawyers. But just what is sports law, what are the rules of the game, what sort of cases crop up, and what do the lawyers need in terms of resources. Lereesa Easterbrook and Said Sufi of Bird & Bird give us a fascinating – and in this Olympic year timely – insight into this burgeoning legal field.

This is the first work to explore the possibility of holding sports governing bodies and competition organisers vicariously liable for the tortious behaviour of athletes that compete under their auspices. In contrast to other scholarly contributions on vicarious liability in sport, this paper examines the scope of responsibility for athletes in individual sports (as opposed to team sports). It begins by drawing upon the recent tribunal proceedings between professional cyclist Jess Varnish and British Cycling to analyse the employment status of government-funded individual athletes. In calling for a contextual and policy-sensitive approach to the definition of an ‘employee’, this paper argues that certain normative and theoretical considerations ought to be granted more or less weight depending on the particular legal issue animating the dispute. Thereafter, and with one eye on the overly intrusive regulatory provisions found in sports such as tennis and golf, this paper also demonstrates that the vicarious liability of governing bodies and competition organisers could equally be extended to cover the tortious conduct of non-funded individual athletes. In making these claims, it is demonstrated how a sport-specific application of the doctrine may help to teach us a few broader lessons about vicarious liability more generally.

Vicarious liability has a greater reach within both professional and amateur football than previously thought. The newly-expanded doctrine has opened up vicarious liability for amateur players, and within grassroots teams. A greater range of torts may also now trigger vicarious liability, such as acts of on and off-pitch violence. The Football Association will need to review the scope of the National Game Insurance Scheme, which significantly lags behind this expanded exposure to vicarious liability.

Examining vicarious liability in the context of football also reveals significant problems with the current approach to vicarious liability within unincorporated associations. This category developed in the context of institutional abuse within highly-organised religious institutions; it does not mean that this category of vicarious liability should be applied to grassroots sporting organisations in the same way. For instance there is scope to apply a different test at stage two. It is argued that the courts will need to tighten up this category so as not to unnecessarily expose members of grass roots organisations to vicarious liability which is able to be executed against their personal assets. Both amateur and professional clubs may also wish to carefully consider their selection of players.

This article is a critical examination of the claim that the emergence of private self-regulatory regimes in the transnational sphere signals a new trend of self-constitutionalization outside the limits of nation-state based or intergovernmental control. It deals with the question to what extent the diffusion of public authority in the sphere beyond the state affects the responsibility of the state(s) to procure the legitimacy of such private self-regulation. First, a conceptual argument is developed which identifies private self-regulatory regimes as rule systems nested in a specific constitutional order of the international society, here described as ‘neo-Westphalian’ (Section I). Second, implications for the responsibility to procure the legitimacy of collectively binding regulatory functions performed by private actors in the sphere beyond the state are considered (Section II). Often cited as a model example of autonomous societal self-regulation, the lex sportiva renders particularly strong plausibility for the claimed non-existence of purely private self-regulation. The regulation of performance-enhancing substances can serve to demonstrate the complex interactions between multiple public and private sites of constitutional authority (Section III). In conclusion (Section IV), I argue that, although the ultimate responsibility for providing legitimacy continues to lie with the state/world of states, the political order of the international society as construed in neo-Westphalian terms provides a dispersed and fragmented constitutional-style legal framework with few reliable guarantees that states are capable or willing to enact their background role. Therefore, a substantial part of the burden of – initial – legitimation must be carried by those directly involved in private self-regulation by constituting and exercising public authority.

In 2012 London becomes the first city to host an Olympics for the third time. The contrast between the Games of 2012 and those of 1908 and 1948 could not be starker and form a background to some of the matters discussed in this short piece. Central to the discussion is the contention that the development of the body of law now known as sports law is related to the accelerated commercialisation of sport during the past century. In short, the business of modern sport is exactly that – a business; indeed, sport is now a global industry and the commodification of sport will be seen to an exaggerated effect in London throughout the summer of 2012. Accordingly, this article by Jack Anderson begins by giving an outline of the financial robustness of modern sport, epitomised by the Olympics, before presenting a brief history of the evolution of sports law. Thereafter various issues in contemporary sports law are identified and discussed. The conclusion attempts to bring all of these themes together in order to give an overview of the area as a discrete, vibrant, if still emerging, discipline of law.

In this article, John Eaton details Canadians' passion for ice hockey and chronicles the legal struggles of Canadian women to partake in the sport on an equal basis to men. Readers interested in the law of ice hockey are referred to the authoritative work on the subject, John Barnes's The Law of Hockey (Markham: LexisNexis Canada Inc., 2010) and those who wish to read more of the story of women's ice hockey in Canada should consult Etue, Elizabeth & Williams, Megan K., On the Edge: Women Making Hockey History (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1996).

The Olympic Games are the world's most recognised international sporting event alongside the FIFA World Cup. Started in ancient Greece, the Olympic Games were revived in modern times in 1896 and occur every four years. This article, by Esther Cho, discusses how to research the structure and legal aspects of the Olympic Movement. It also encompasses the general array of international sports law resources connected to the Olympic Movement.

In this article, Mark James and Guy Osborn discuss how the relationships between the various members of the Olympic Movement are governed by the Olympic Charter and the legal framework within which an edition of the Olympic Games is organised. The legal status of the Charter and its interpretation by the Court of Arbitration for Sport are examined to identify who is subject to its terms and how challenges to its requirements can be made. Finally, by using the UK legislation that has been enacted to regulate advertising and trading at London 2012, the far-reaching and sometimes unexpected reach of Olympic Law is explored.

In this article Simon Boyes traces the development of the discipline of sports law as represented and effected by the literature in the field. The article identifies different aspects of sports law and the various levels and locations within which it operates and identifies the leading academic and practitioner works associated with each. The article also considers the major developments in the field and the way in which they have shaped the sports law literature.

In this article David Ibbetson takes a perspective from the ancient world. A number of texts of Roman law are concerned with injuries arising in the course of athletics. They are particularly concerned with blameworthy killings, and constitute some of the most fundamental texts at the historical base of modern negligence liability. Behind them there may lie questions discussed by Greek orators, where they were fitted into a rather different framework from that of the Romans.

In this article Peter Charlish addresses the controversial issue of the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport. He looks at the legal basis for regulation via the World Anti-Doping Code and the nature of a sports participant's relationship with their governing body and the anti-doping organisations. He explains in the context of proportionality, the measures designed to combat doping in sport; the importance to the Code of the central principle of strict liability. Also, he highlights the use of non-analytical positives as a further method of detection of doping violations, whilst taking consideration of the impact of these measures on the human rights of participants.

In this article Jonathan Morgan reveals how the tradition of self-regulation in British sport has raised difficult questions for lawyers. On what basis can the decisions of governing bodies – which are clearly not organs of the state – be challenged? The Jockey Club was a regular subject of legal challenges from the mid 20th Century. An analysis of those cases illuminates the wider debate concerning the basis and extent of judicial review in English law.