Idrotten och anställningen - Idrotten ur ett arbetsrättsligt perspektiv
(2015) HARH16 20142Department of Business Law
- Abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the characteristics of the employment conditions for a professional athlete appears, relative to the conclusion of the contract, the ongoing employment and the termination of the contract. It has been shown that sport has its own organization, with a high degree of autonomy, with its own legal framework. This does not, however, hinder labor regulations that is present for other workers in Sweden from being applicable to athletes. The EU has historically not wanted to intervene with the sport's regulations because of its uniqueness. It is however undisputed that the parts of European law ratified into Swedish labor law also covers professional athletes. It is mainly in relation to the free... (More)
- The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the characteristics of the employment conditions for a professional athlete appears, relative to the conclusion of the contract, the ongoing employment and the termination of the contract. It has been shown that sport has its own organization, with a high degree of autonomy, with its own legal framework. This does not, however, hinder labor regulations that is present for other workers in Sweden from being applicable to athletes. The EU has historically not wanted to intervene with the sport's regulations because of its uniqueness. It is however undisputed that the parts of European law ratified into Swedish labor law also covers professional athletes. It is mainly in relation to the free movement EU law has come into conflict with sport regulations. For a contract of employment to be legitimate, it requires that you voluntarily perform work for another for remuneration. No other formal requirements needs to be met. It is common for an individual athlete (Individuell idrottare) to be seen as a contractor while team athletes often are seen as workers (arbetstagare). What determines what you are classed as is for example whether the compensation you receive is per unit of time, or if you or the employer is responsible for the management. The work obligation (arbetsskyldighet) for an athlete can probably be considered to be a bit more exstensive than for a worker in other sectors of the labor market. In many cases the employer decides completely over working hours, and the Working Hours Act (Arbetstidslagen) is completely disregarded. Athletes are almost exclusively temporarily employed for a fixed period (viss tid). A corollary of this is that athletes in theory can not be made redundant, but only terminated. In other words, athletes have a stronger employment protection as long as the agreed upon timed has not ended, but in the longer term, they have a more uncertain protection. However, it has been found that athletes are sometimes terminated without a just cause (saklig grund), for example when they commit crimes of various sort. This does not mean that it is lawfully right that they were terminated, it means that they do not deny dismissal and has not disputed the fact. I reason about it being because of the athlete's public status that crimes and misconduct is seen as more serious and therefore has graver consequences on the contract. The notion that I perceive, that the employment protection for athletes would be much worse, seems to be untrue, and rather stem from a lack of knowledge about one's rights and responsibilities as an employee. There are trends that suggest that not all sports have kept up to pace with labor law developments, one example being the lack of player organizations. Of course there is an imminent risk that the employer uses his position of power and fails to respect the rights of workers in case they are not aware of them. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/4940697
- author
- Mjörnman, Kristian LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- HARH16 20142
- year
- 2015
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Labor law, Sport, Sports law, Employment
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 4940697
- date added to LUP
- 2015-01-29 10:39:03
- date last changed
- 2015-01-29 10:39:03
@misc{4940697,
abstract = {{The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how the characteristics of the employment conditions for a professional athlete appears, relative to the conclusion of the contract, the ongoing employment and the termination of the contract. It has been shown that sport has its own organization, with a high degree of autonomy, with its own legal framework. This does not, however, hinder labor regulations that is present for other workers in Sweden from being applicable to athletes. The EU has historically not wanted to intervene with the sport's regulations because of its uniqueness. It is however undisputed that the parts of European law ratified into Swedish labor law also covers professional athletes. It is mainly in relation to the free movement EU law has come into conflict with sport regulations. For a contract of employment to be legitimate, it requires that you voluntarily perform work for another for remuneration. No other formal requirements needs to be met. It is common for an individual athlete (Individuell idrottare) to be seen as a contractor while team athletes often are seen as workers (arbetstagare). What determines what you are classed as is for example whether the compensation you receive is per unit of time, or if you or the employer is responsible for the management. The work obligation (arbetsskyldighet) for an athlete can probably be considered to be a bit more exstensive than for a worker in other sectors of the labor market. In many cases the employer decides completely over working hours, and the Working Hours Act (Arbetstidslagen) is completely disregarded. Athletes are almost exclusively temporarily employed for a fixed period (viss tid). A corollary of this is that athletes in theory can not be made redundant, but only terminated. In other words, athletes have a stronger employment protection as long as the agreed upon timed has not ended, but in the longer term, they have a more uncertain protection. However, it has been found that athletes are sometimes terminated without a just cause (saklig grund), for example when they commit crimes of various sort. This does not mean that it is lawfully right that they were terminated, it means that they do not deny dismissal and has not disputed the fact. I reason about it being because of the athlete's public status that crimes and misconduct is seen as more serious and therefore has graver consequences on the contract. The notion that I perceive, that the employment protection for athletes would be much worse, seems to be untrue, and rather stem from a lack of knowledge about one's rights and responsibilities as an employee. There are trends that suggest that not all sports have kept up to pace with labor law developments, one example being the lack of player organizations. Of course there is an imminent risk that the employer uses his position of power and fails to respect the rights of workers in case they are not aware of them.}},
author = {{Mjörnman, Kristian}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Idrotten och anställningen - Idrotten ur ett arbetsrättsligt perspektiv}},
year = {{2015}},
}