World Cup & Law
As today is the kickoff for the FIFA World Cup 2006 (football or soccer for you non-sports fans, and “football” or “soccer” depending on where you are and what your inclinations are, perhaps even “futbol”.) I thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the legal aspects of the World Cup. It seems that is not just the world cup of futbol, but also for lawyers. Some of the primary legal areas include: Employment law (all those getting sick around the time their favourite squad takes the pitch), the sex-trade (some countries have legalized, others have not and issues that have arisen) and Intellectual Property (FIFA is very protective of everything World Cup-ish). With a few other areas that are also very interesting.
Lawyers and the World Cup:
From the London Times: Lawyers get World Cup fever
From the London Times: World Cup impossible to stage without lawyers
From WilmerHale.com: Developments in German Law Regarding Gifts of World Cup Tickets to Government Officials
Misc
From Yahoo: England looks to the law for peaceful Cup: England to use banning orders to prevent hooligans from attending World Cup.
Mark D. West, University of Michigan Law School: Legal Determinants of World Cup Success “Using LLSV methodology, this Article examines the relation between legal protections and soccer success, using as the dependent variable the number of points each country has in the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Rankings.”
Drink Laws:
From the BBC:
World Cup will test law allowing extended drinking hours
Intellectual Property:
FIFA has sent a pre-emptive warning letter to a popular blog re: streaming rights of World Cup Games. – Boing, boing
From: Deutsche Welle: FIFA Faces Legal Action Over World Cup Image Rights – The world’s media is threatening to take legal action against FIFA unless soccer’s governing body lifts the restrictions it has imposed on coverage at this year’s World Cup.
From: Deutsche Welle: McDonald’s, Coke Run Afoul of German Law with Ball-Bottle
Sex Trade:
From Spiegel Online: Germany’s sex trade
From the New York Times: U.S. Warns Germany About Sex Trafficking
Employment:
From the London Times: Prepare your workplace for the World Cup
From the Register: Five tips for employers to beat World Cup fever
From the Register:Watching World Cup online could land you in court
From Yahoo: Head of German Public Services Union “Verdi” states Workers need time to watch World Cup
Th to Workplace Prof Blog: A Netherlands insurer has offered a policy to cover World Cup Sick days
Racism
From International Herald Tribune: World Cup plans anti-racism defense
From Telegraph.co.uk: Don’t mention the war, World Cup fans told: Laws in Germany against glorifying the Third Reich
I enjoyed this post Mark. Nice work!
Thanks, I thought you might. So who are cheering for?
One of the reasons I love checking Lektora for Slaw comments! Great selection of World Cup excuses to “practice law”… And I’m cheering for the Czech’s (I saw them live in Portugal 2 years ago; impressive team)…
probably England… I love to be over-confident, only to have my heart crushed.
Good job, Mark. I’ve always maintained that you can find some legal aspects to any topic.
Now that Rooney is back in the lineup, the only team to cheer for is England!
Unfortunately, Canada is not in the World Cup, even though we have quite a soccer history. See the excellent CBC site at
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-41-2273/sports/soccer/
nc
In late May, I prepared some resources on the issue of anti-doping laws in sports:
http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2006/05/world-cup-2006-in-germany-law-on.html
Cheers, Library Boy
Bravo! Things are certainly heating up in Toronto with each of the teams represented in one neighbourhood or another. In NHL terms, it is kind of like having all the Oilers, Flames, Senators, Leafs and Canadiens fans in one city during Stanley Cup playoffs!
A couple of things I just discovered on Google:
News page incorporating news, scores and video of the World Cup:
http://www.google.ca/ig
If you search Google for “FIFA” (the World Cup organizing body), the current match and score is listed at the top of the search results. Cool.
Using that Google tool I see that the Czech Repuplic is beating the U.S. 3-nil in the 87th minute. OUCH! That’s gotta hoit!
Take a look at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/review_of_the_o.php for a review of the official World Cup website.
The official FIFA site has some decent Flash movies illustrating various rules. I found the offsides one helpful.
And the Daily Mail tells us not to try and dodge work to watch. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=390272&in_page_id=1770
I got this from a link on the Star-Phoenix but it wanted a password. Got to love preserving the revenue base.
Just to drive this thing into the ground, here’s a site that displays “a history of the online World Cup” : http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2006/06/a_history_of_the_online_world.php
Rooney ask Beckham: elder brother, when York graceful association I have not come, he really has that fiercely? Backham: Certainly, if you go on stage ,certainly gaze at him.
Come on England!!!!Tonight!!
http://www.fifaworldcup-yahoo.co.uk
Dr Han (Super football fans)
PAIN IN BRISTOL– http://www.backachetherapy.co.uk
This sounds like DNTO’s Lost in Translation
And nobody noticed that the great Tulkinghorn has a daily lawyer’s blog on the cup at http://www.thelawyer.com/news/worldcup.html