In recent years the reputation of sport has been damaged by scandals about doping and betting, bribed referees and transfer bungs. In October, the Independent European Sport Review 2006 (IESR), commissioned by European sports ministers to investigate how European football authorities, European Union (EU) institutions and member states can create a more stable legal environment for football and its governance, was published.
In 1999, the European Commission (EC) published its ‘Preliminary Guidelines on the Application of the Competition Rules to Sport’ in response to the growing number of cases in which EU competition law was applied to sport.
