World Cup and Law

Every four years, sports fans enjoy themselves for a month watching the World Cup. This event, which brings together 32 federations from around the world, is closely linked with Law.

The magnitude of the event means that all areas of Law that are normally regulated in any country can be involved, such as commercial, labor, criminal and others. It is important to note that the entire private regulatory structure that Fifa has, which is applicable to the World Cup (added to that of the International Olympic Committee, which develops the other largest sporting event in the world: Olympic Games) have given rise to the foundation and the existence of Sports Law as an independent practice area of Law, since this private regulatory framework is international and national.

Sports Law basically regulates specific aspects of the game or sport, as well as the relationship between its associates and athletes and has its own structure to resolve conflicts based on alternative mechanisms of conflict resolution, such as mediation or arbitration.

Sports Law is transversal to all the areas of Law and the relationships that arise from the practice of sport have drawn the attention of the States, who have progressively publicized it through the issuance of provisions, general or specific, that regulate all aspects of sport, such as rules on doping, labor relations with professional athletes, associative structures to practice sport or behavior of spectators at sporting events.

In the Soccer World Cup we have the application of all Fifa private regulations, which allows us to talk about Sports Law, and the public regulations of the State of Qatar in all relevant matters, which, by commitment to Fifa, has been adequate in many aspects to encourage the presence of spectators, ensure the protection of the marketing itself, the security in the stadiums, etc.