The Effectiveness of Legal Requirements in the Organization of Sports Events: The Case of Outdoor Sports

From local sports events to international competitions held under the aegis of various types of organizations, millions of events take place throughout the world each year. But the setting-up of an outdoor sport event presents a whole host of legal challenges. Organizers are faced with many obligations they must fulfil. The difficulty lies in the multiplicity of their sources, and non-compliance may result in liability. Since the socio-economic issues associated with these events conditions the good health of a region, it’s reasonable to question the effectiveness of organizer requirements in terms of risk management.

The subject has been only lightly touched upon in the literature. The aim here is to go beyond the enumeration of legal requirements through an applied perspective. While sports events hold great touristic appeal, organizing them proves complex in view of the related rules, to such a point that some on-the-spot rule adaptation may occur and compromise the imposed safety objectives. Do gaps therefore exist in the regulations or do they have perverse effects? Are they faced with resistances? A dual methodology has been used consisting of an analysis of the legislative and regulatory texts in force, of several files filed with related case law, and sociological analysis of interviews conducted with the various parties involved, as well as reported and unreported participant observations at national and international events.

Organizers mainly comply with their obligations before filing their file, which condition the organization of their event. If it lacks precision, a spirit of conciliation predominates and they are requested to enhance their security and/or safety measures. Accidents do occur, however, even when organizers have gone above and beyond the prescriptions of legal and regulatory requirements. Deviations from the rule are observed, as a result of management decisions, organizational dynamics and the representations collaborators may have of their tasks. Legal and regulatory requirements are hampered by practices on the ground (Gasparini, 2003; Carbonnier, 2004).

Several factors may place organizers in a difficult situation while they are hosting their event. With the logic of a preventive approach, prior identification of any potential stumbling blocks linked to the organization of such events is important so as to avoid any accidents occurring, as well as any subsequent seeking of liability. It’s also necessary to go further by taking account of the relationship between the types of sporting events and volunteering.