USA vs EU 1-0 (1-0, 0-0)

Sammanfattning: Three years after the Bosman case, it was decided that a socio-cultural approach on sports be introduced in Europe. EU presented a formulation for the same purpose – The European Model of Sport. The purpose of this formula was to maintain the socio-culture and traditional ap¬proach to all kinds of amateur and professional sports in Europe. If we were to com¬pare this model with the American model of sport, it shows many different ways of thinking in terms of organised sport. However, both models show that they have to adjust to the processes that are on-going in western societies. The development of civilisation, professionalisation, com-mer¬cialisation, commodification, and globalisation are all processes to which sports have to adjust.Because of the adjustments mentioned above, another process was introduced, this was called “ju¬ridification”, which is very prevalent today. The process of “juridification” involved all legalities in the sports system. The purpose of introducing this process was mainly to question the sports autonomy. The autonomy in sport defines itself as a self-regulator and is not part of the civil law. A ma¬jor part of the “ques¬tion¬ables” to the sports autonomy is, that sports of to-day have a symbiotic relationship with the media industry and the commercial market, which means that there is a huge in-flow of cash into elite sports. However, this has become a ques-tionable aspect, as to why sport should not be part of the competition law as any other busi-ness. As a result of this, several legal cases relating to sports are ending up in courts.EU has a divided and vague approach when it comes to handling these matters. On the one hand it de¬clares clearly that economic activities should be part of the EU law and on the other hand, if sports cases go to trial to the Competition Law, it would be decided on a case-to-case basis. In the US, pro¬fessional sports are part of the Common Law and their sports, had on a much earlier stage become involved with the judicial system. The American Model of Sport, have also a clear distinction be¬tween amateur and professional sports. Together, these two aspects show that the model in the US is bet¬ter adjusted to the present on-going processes in contempo¬rary societies.