The LAWIN law firm is happy to present to RGSL students and others interested a guest lecture by Robert C.R. Siekmann on 7 May at Riga Graduate School of Law "Introduction to International and European Sports Law: What is Sports Law?; Lex Sportiva and Lex Ludica; Sport Specificity in EU Law and beyond".
In this lecture, first attention will be paid to the fundamental question of whether sports law exists and what sports law is, what it consists of. What makes sports law special? Thereafter, the speaker will deal with the essential concept of "sport specificity" - not only as it developed in the EU law context, but also beyond (FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber and CAS).. A number of sport specificity highlights will be presented in due course: the Walrave, Bosman and Meca Medina cases (European Court of Justice); the issue of the collective selling of TV rights; sport and nationality issues ("passport shopping" and the 6+5 and home-grown players rules of FIFA and UEFA); Social Dialogue in sport; the Webster and Matuzalem cases of CAS; anti-doping law (WADA Code), football hooliganism at CAS; etc.
Robert C.R. Siekmann completed gymnasium and studied Slavonic languages and Law at the University of Leiden. His PhD (1988) at the University of Amsterdam dealt with the legal status of troop-contributing countries to UN peace-keeping operations.
At the T.M.C. Asser Institute for International and European Law in The Hague he was Head of Research and then became Director of the newly established ASSER International Sports Law Centre. In 2002 he started The International Sports Law Journal (ISLJ) as its editor-in-chief and he was the editor-in chief of the newly established ASSER International Sports Law Series of book publications. In June 2012 he retired from the Asser Institute.
In 2010, Dr Siekmann was appointed Professor of International and European Sports Law at the Law School of Erasmus University Rotterdam and this year he was appointed a visiting professor at the Sports Law Research Centre of Edge Hill University (United Kingdom). He is the general coordinator of the Hague International Sports Law Academy (HISLAC) which was established in Djakarta (Indonesia) in 2010.
His main publication in the field of sports law is the book "Introduction to International and European Sports Law - Capita Selecta", T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague 2012. He co-edited inter alia the reader "Lex Sportiva: What is Sports Law?"(2012).
During the last decade, he organised numerous conferences and seminars on sports law, at home in The Netherlands and abroad, and lectured in recent years in particular at several universities in China. He managed numerous sports law-related comparative search studies for the European Commission and participated in EU sports law seminars organised by the European Commission in a number of candidate EU member states.
Currently, he is writing a book on "Lex Ludica: Soccer Rules Revisited", to be followed-up by a comparative study on the laws of the game of team sports.
During more than fifty years Robert Siekmann played for several amateur football clubs in The Netherlands. His main interest is sport and in particular football.