13 Oct 2022
On Thursday 13th October 2022, the Sports Law Bar Association presented a cheque to Sara Phelan SC, Chair, The Bar of Ireland in aid of Irish Justice Community Afghan Appeal. This presentation was made by Committee member, Tim O'Connor BL, and Susan Ahern BL, Chair, SLBA.
The cheque presentation took place before the highly anticipated SLBA event "Are individual athletes workers?" in which Brendan Kirwan SC looked at the Irish common law approach, Irish legislative intervention in areas such as agency workers, how the English legislation provides for an intermediate worker category and assessing what could be done in Ireland to accommodate athletes.
Dr. Leanne O’Leary, FCIArb, Senior Lecturer Edge Hill University spoke bout the topic and in particular about the EU Project in which she is involved: Understanding, Evaluating, and Improving Good Governance in the Employment Relations of Athletes in Olympic Sports in Europe. The EU Commission-funded Project has gathered data from each of the European countries, Norway and UK, to ascertain the "employment" situation of athlete e.g. contractual status, benefits provided, health and safety measures, social protections, representation in governance structures. It considered only the individual sports (not football, basketball, handball, volleyball, rugby).
Caradh O’Donovan, Former World and European Kickboxer and Co-Founder of Global Athlete spoke about the increased athlete rights in sport and Global Athlete Start Up Group; which is a movement that aims to drive positive change across the world of sport.Â