The reform of the procedural legislation applicable to the mandatory sports arbitration

Abstract

Notwithstanding the troubled start, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has established itself in the Portuguese law as reference body in resolving disputes arising from legal sports relations, particularly in cases where Law no. 74/2013, of 6 September, obliges its jurisdiction (arbitration mandatory). Cases previously not delt by the courts and which were confined to academic debates are now submitted to an intense jurisprudential elaboration.

However, several aspects of the regime applicable to the necessary sports arbitration that need extensive reform remain, and which, after some time since the entry into force of Law No. 74/2013, of 6 September, need to be reformed. This article presents a set of contributions to the improvement of the procedural legislation applicable to the necessary sports arbitration in five areas: i) the delimitation of the scope of the mandatory jurisdiction of the Court of Arbitration for Sport; ii) the duality of rules applicable to the main proceedings and the precautionary proceedings; iii) the possibility to challenge the decisions in the Court of Arbitration for Sport; iv) the publicizing of the decisions; v) the connection between the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Central Administrative Court of the South.