National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Message by:
President of the Scientific Committee Professor Theodore Fortsakis,
Rector of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

The international scholarly community, all active people occupied with Sports Law, Lawyers, as well as those who are generally involved in Sports, will have the opportunity at the end of this year from 11 to 13 December (2014) in Athens to participate in a big event, the 20th IASL Congress of Sports Law.

It is known that the IASL is active in the sector of Sports Law since 1992, having made 19 consecutive World Congresses. From the first moment of its establishment until today, researching deeply and promoting internationally the scientific field of Sports Law. Moreover, the corresponding 1st International Congress, in which the International Association of Sports Law (IASL) was born, was organized by EKEAD the same dates of December of 1992 in the same place, at the University of Athens.

The subject of this Congress is entitled:
“Sports Law – 22 Years IASL: Lex Sportiva-Lex Olympica and Sports Jurisdiction, Experience, Development & Perspective”

It is a fact that Sports Law, both in Greece, where the International Association of Sports Law started, as well as in other countries all over the World, has received a great expansion and has significant growth. This is also confirmed by the number of issues included for discussion as conference sessions and address the whole area of Sports Law, such as:

• Sports Law Theory: Lex Sportiva – Olympica
• Sport Deontology and Sports Ethics, Sports Jurisdiction
• Sports Law Management and Sports Tourism
• Developments In Sports Law: Learning from Recent Experience And Planning For The Future
• International Aspects of Sports Law

Sports Law, as an expanded scientific area, not only includes issues in the narrow sense of athletic activities such as sports and International Sports Law, but also issues of physical activity, which is considered as physical education, for health reasons, wellness and wellbeing in people’s spare time and sports tourism as well.

Moreover, it is important that in this Conference, except all the special issues of Sports Law and Sports Jurisdiction, will be discussed issues that require special settings, such as those of sports moral, sports management and sports tourism, because with all these sporting events, we have large movements of number of athletes and spectators with too many legal problems existing.

The 20th IASL Congress in Athens acquires an utmost importance because here will be discussion on a variety of topics with the presence of distinguished speakers of high international prestige, while there will be important announcements of specific researchers of Sports Law in a postgraduate or doctoral level. On the other hand, will be specifically discussed issues of international practice in sports in order to create and adopt an International Charter for sport for the establishment of an international legal framework in a sports, specifying the limits of a positive Lex Sportiva.

Therefore it is obvious that our expectations of such a Conference are very high, as well as the participation in this project of scholars and operators of sports life.

I am sure that the next day of the Congress we will be wiser. We are looking forward to your participation and we wish you to have a wonderful time in beautiful Athens.

With my regards,

Prof. Theodore Fortsakis