At the request of the presidents of football clubs, people's deputies of Ukraine registered in the Verkhovna Rada the draft Law of Ukraine on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Physical Culture and Sports" (reg. No. 7719).
In particular, this draft law was developed with the aim of distinguishing sports events and competitions, as well as the statuses of persons responsible for their conduct.
Bill No. 7719
According to the text of the Explanatory Note of the authors of the draft law headed by the Chairman of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Youth and Sports Andriy Kozhemyakin, the deputies propose to amend the Laws of Ukraine "On Physical Culture and Sports" and to introduce a distinction between the concepts of "sports event" and "sports competition", which will allow more transparent determination of the status of the organizer of a sports event and the organizer of a sports competition.
"In domestic sports, there has long been a problem of determining and distinguishing the legal status of the organizer of a sports competition (in fact, the federation the relevant sport) and the direct organizer of the sporting event (the relevant sports club). The question concerns, in particular, the rights and duties arising from the relevant status.
Considering the war in Ukraine and the need to support sports clubs, on whose shoulders is the solution of all issues (including material and financial), as well as the risks associated with holding a relevant sports event in war conditions, there is a need for a clear demarcation of the concepts of "sports competition" and "sports event", as well as delineation of the statuses of persons responsible for their conduct", is noted in the text of the Explanatory Note.
According to the proposal of the authors of the draft law No. 7719, the following provision is proposed to be added to its Article 9 (Sports clubs): "A sports club that, within the limits of sports competitions, conducts a sports event and carries out organizational, financial and other support for its preparation and conduct, is considered the organizer of a sports event ".
It contains all the changes proposed by the deputies Comparison table to the draft Law of Ukraine on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Physical Culture and Sports" regarding the distinction between sports events and competitions.
Appeal of clubs
It should be added that the mentioned initiative of parliamentarians was preceded address of presidents of football clubs "Dynamo" Kyiv, "Dnipro-1", "Metalist" Kharkiv, "Zorya" Luhansk and "Rukh" Lviv to the head of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on youth and sports issues regarding the imperfection of the current legal regulations in matters of determining the proper right holder of the rights to telecast football matches and the need for their arrangement.
"The current law, indeed, absolutely appropriately recognizes that such a right holder is the "organizer of a sports event", however, due to the incorrect definition of the concept of a sports event given in the current law, and the lack of definition of the concept of the organizer of sports competitions, there are different approaches to recognizing, in fact, the proper right holder corresponding rights, - said in the address of the presidents of 5 clubs.
... Some experts believe that the national federation should be considered the owner of the rights to broadcast matches. They motivate their position by the fact that the concept of "sports event" is defined by law as "sports competitions and/or educational and training meetings", and therefore, since the sports federation is the organizer of the competitions, it is the right holder of all rights to telecasts. Another group of specialists is convinced that the right holder is the club that organizes the preparation and holding of a separate sports event... (in this case, a match).
The point is that the current law defines that the organizer of a sports event is a legal entity or an individual who provides organizational and financial support for the preparation and holding of the event. The host club of the match acts as such organizer in our championship. Therefore, it is obvious that, under such circumstances, the host club of the relevant match should be considered the proper owner of all intellectual property rights (copyrights) related to the broadcast of such a match, as well as the rest of the property rights related to it., - club presidents rightly point out.
Accordingly, we believe that there is a need to eliminate such a conflict of norms of the current Law of Ukraine "On Physical Culture and Sports" by introducing amendments to it regarding the distinction between the status of the organizer of the competition and the organizer of the sports event held within the limits of the competition.", are offered by representatives of Dynamo, Dnipro-1, Metalist, Zorya and Rukh clubs, who signed the appeal.
