Idrottsrörelsens autonomi och dess gränser – Om rättslig överprövning av idrottsliga beslut

Sammanfattning: Today, the sports movement is the largest social movement in Sweden, and sports are a matter for many people all around the world. The Swedish sports movement has enjoyed a sense of autonomy and independence during a long period of time, and this order has been enhanced due to an increased extent of commercialisation, together with a vast use of arbitration agreements and own arbitration panels. This has led to the following questions for this paper; when do the Swedish courts interfere with disputes within the sports movement and where do they put the boundaries for the autonomy of the movement? My essay aims to clarify the relation between the autonomy and the legal system as well as to analyse the advantages and the disadvantages of the autonomy. After going through available case law and doctrine in the sports law area, a split image of the legal position appears; the answer to the question about the courts’ intervention mainly depends on how the case’s circumstances present themselves. The probability of having a dispute brought to the court room mainly depends on whether there is a valid arbitration agreement between the parties, which there frequently is. In cases where an arbitration agreement is not present, the probability depends on the case; it is generally more common that a contractual dispute is heard, rather than a proper associational dispute. However, I have discovered that the chances of success are relatively low. It is somewhat clear, however, that the courts are not very willing to interfere by making a substantial review of a decision from the sports movement, particularly not when it concerns decisions that do not have an actual impact on the involved person’s economy or business. Thus, the autonomy of the sports movement remains intact, but certainly needs to be viewed at from a critical perspective. Despite this, I believe that the autonomy of the sports movement is something good, based on several reasons. The tradition of self-regulation in the sports movement should, for example, guarantee that the arbitration panels have the special knowledge of the relevant set of rules in order to settle disputes in a correct way. I consider the existing exceptions of the autonomy to be sufficient to ensure the legal certainty of individuals at the same time as it preserves justice in the sports movement.