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A sports governing body owes a duty to its athletes and fans alike to ensure that the playing-field is level and the outcome is determined solely by the athletes' natural talents, skill and effort, and not by confounding factors such as use of performance-enhancing drugs or equipment, or insuperable natural advantages in age, sex, or weight.
Jonathan Taylor KC, with his unparalleled experience in the field over the past 28 years, in particular as lead advocate on some of the most prominent and important sports law cases ever fought, provides a detailed insider account of those cases as a means of illustrating the practical, ethical and legal issues confronted by regulators who are seeking to protect what makes sport such a unique and compelling spectacle.
With anecdotes from those he has come across over the years, both inside and outside of the litigation process, Jonathan sets out his cases that deal with match-fixing, doping, male and female competition categories and sports equipment, to illustrate a substantive discussion of the legal challenges involved in regulating sport.
This title is included in Bloomsbury Professional's Sports Law online service.
About the author
Jonathan Taylor KC is co-head of Bird & Bird's International Sports Group. He has been ranked as a leading sports law practitioner for many years by both Chambers and Partners UK (2023: ‘Star individual’) and The Legal 500 (2023: ‘Hall of Fame’), and advises nationally and internationally on cutting-edge commercial, regulatory, and contentious issues across all major sports. He was the chair of WADA's independent Compliance Review Committee from 2016-2020 and of the IBU External Review Commission from 2018-2020, as well as conducting both the Governance Review and the Bury FC Review for the English Football League in 2019. He is currently chair of the Advisory Council of the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit in the US, and of WADA’s Working Group on Contaminants, as well as a member of the Anti-Doping Monitoring Committee of the Bahrain Athletics Association, and he sits as an arbitrator for Sport Resolutions (UK). He has appeared regularly before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and other sports tribunals, including appearing for the international federation in landmark cases such as Puerta v International Tennis Federation; International Cricket Council v Butt, Amir & Asif; Russian Olympic Committee v International Paralympic Committee; and Caster Semenya v IAAF.
