Overview

This module examines the governance of sport: how sporting organisations are constituted, where they derive their authority, and how they create the rules and regulatory structures that operate alongside the general law.

Key Topics

Regulatory pyramid, governance structures, natural justice, court intervention in sport, sources of authority

Lecture

Tutorial

Connection to Course

This module provides the essential foundation for everything that follows. The governance frameworks and principles of natural justice you learn here will be directly relevant when you study challenging sporting decisions (Module 2), player contracts (Module 3), integrity matters (Module 4), and commercial arrangements (Module 5).

Overview

This module examines what happens when participants in sport are dissatisfied with decisions made by sporting bodies. Whether it's a disciplinary tribunal imposing a ban, a selection panel overlooking an athlete, or a governing body changing its rules, the question is the same: what can be done about it? You will explore the internal dispute resolution mechanisms that sporting organisations use and the circumstances in which the general law provides an external avenue of challenge.

Key Topics

Judicial review, CAS, administrative law in sport, privative clauses, domestic tribunals

Lectures

Tutorial

Connection to Course

Building directly on the governance frameworks from Module 1, this module examines what happens when those frameworks produce decisions that athletes or administrators want to challenge. The principles you learn here — particularly around judicial review and CAS — will resurface when you study integrity matters and disciplinary proceedings in Module 4.

Overview

This module turns to the contractual frameworks that govern the relationship between athletes and the organisations they play for. Player contracts in professional sport are unlike most employment agreements — they involve restraints on movement, salary caps, draft systems, and transfer mechanisms that would be unusual in any other industry. The module then moves to athlete representation — the legal and regulatory frameworks governing sports agents, managers, and intermediaries.

Key Topics

Player contracts, restraint of trade, salary caps, transfer systems, collective bargaining

Lectures

Tutorials

Connection to Course

The contractual frameworks you study here have direct implications for the integrity issues covered in Module 4 (where player conduct obligations intersect with anti-doping and match-fixing regulation) and the commercial arrangements in Module 5 (where player image rights and sponsorship obligations are typically governed by contract).

Overview

This module addresses the legal and regulatory frameworks designed to protect the integrity of sport. Anti-doping law is system-preservation technology — a regulatory architecture designed to protect the integrity of competition as a commercial and cultural asset. Sport and wagering are structurally entangled — commercially, economically, and legally — in ways that cannot be cleanly separated. And the law permits sport to be violent in ways it would prohibit in almost every other context. Understanding how integrity is regulated across these dimensions is central to advising in the sports industry.

Key Topics

WADA Code, anti-doping, strict liability, match-fixing, disciplinary proceedings, integrity frameworks, CAS appeals

Lectures

Tutorial

Connection to Course

This module is directly connected to your assessment. The Sandpapergate scenario you will work with for Assessment 1 is a real-world example of the disciplinary processes and integrity frameworks studied in this module. The principles of natural justice from Module 1 and the challenge mechanisms from Module 2 are both directly applicable here.

Overview

Every governance structure, every integrity system, and every athlete relationship studied in this course depends on commercial revenue to function. This module examines how that revenue enters sport, what it demands in return, and how contracts reconcile competing motivations — from broadcasting deals that reshape when competitions are played, through to sponsorship contracts where the core asset is association, not intellectual property.

Key Topics

Sponsorship agreements, ambush marketing, media rights, broadcasting, IP, trademarks, image rights

Lectures

Tutorials

Connection to Course

This module brings together many of the themes from earlier in the course. The contractual principles from Module 3 underpin sponsorship and broadcasting agreements. The governance structures from Module 1 determine who has the authority to grant commercial rights. And the integrity frameworks from Module 4 are increasingly intersecting with commercial interests as sports betting and sponsorship create new regulatory challenges.