Legalsport

Navigating the Legal Landscape of Sports

Category: Ethics

  • Latvian NT player ‘s rights to play against international clubs

    Latvian national basketball team’s player’s club match against Russian clubs has been a topic in Latvian media recently, here is a legal assessment of this issue.

    The international tournament at issue

    Latvian media began reporting in mid-July that Latvian national basketball player D. Bertāns’ club would participate in a pre-season tournament in Serbia with the participation of two leading teams of the Russian Federation.

    Jauns.lv news: “Will Dāvis Bertāns play against Russian teams? His club “Dubai” has agreed to participate in the Occupier League Super Cup“

    https://jauns.lv/raksts/sports/663795-vai-davis-bertans-speles-pret-krievijas-komandam-vina-klubs-dubai-piekritis-piedalities-okupantu-ligas-superkausa

    The tricky nature of D. Bertāns’ situation

    First, Internet users are asking questions about the basketball player’s employer’s decision and the ethical side of the basketball player’s own possible participation.

    Secondly, questions about the legal side of such participation.

    Personal attitude

    The basketball player’s attitude towards the ethical side of the issue seems to have been sufficiently analyzed by the Internet so far. One can only speculate whether a similar trend will continue in the future. It is clear that participation in such a tournament is primarily decided by the club management, not by an individual basketball player.

    The filter of Latvian “Sports’ law”

    The Latvian Sports Law contains a number of legal provisions regarding the participation of athletes in tournaments with Russian teams.

    This situation is made especially tricky by the fact that Bertāns could soon be very useful to the national team in the Eurobasket 2025 games, and it would be a great pity to lose one of Latvia’s best players due to such a tournament, for legal reasons.

    Sports law norms: Articles 16.1 and 17.1

    First of all, it is necessary to understand what the criteria of the law are. The second part of Article 16.1 would apply to Bertāns, but Article 17.1 would not really apply.

    Article 16.1. Prohibition on participation in sports competitions

    (1) Sports teams registered in the Republic of Latvia, regardless of their legal status, are prohibited from participating in:

    1) national championships and national cup competitions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus;

    2) sports competitions in international leagues of team sports games where more than half of the participants are teams from the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus.

    (2) Athletes and sports workers are prohibited from participating in sports competitions held in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.

    Article 17.1. Prohibition on organizing sports competitions

    (1) It is prohibited to organize the following team sports competitions in the Republic of Latvia:

    1) national championships and national cup competitions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus;

    2) sports competitions in international leagues of team sports games where more than half of the participants are teams from the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus.

    (2) In the Republic of Latvia, it is prohibited to organize competitions of national team sports games (adult, youth and junior) (hereinafter in this Article – national team) in which national teams of the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus participate under their own flag or in a neutral status.

    (3) National teams of the Republic of Latvia in team sports games are prohibited from playing against national teams of the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus if they participate in competitions under their own flag or in a neutral status.

    Bertāns as a player in the context of the Sports Law

    In the current wording of the law, D. Bertāns as a player is only subject to a small part of the regulatory restriction.

    His club is not registered in Latvia, not even in Europe and is not bound by the national regulation of Latvia.

    The matches will not take place in Latvia, therefore the club has no reason to worry about Latvian norms territorially either.
    The rule regarding the athlete’s participation in matches on Russian territory is not fulfilled, because Russian clubs will go to Serbia, which is an independent and sovereign state, whose autonomy Latvia fully recognizes.
    The proportion of numerical tournament participants does not exceed the legally permissible “concentration”
    Even if, theoretically, Bertāns would play for the Latvian team in the tournament and be the only national basketball player, the law would not punish this situation considering that “more than half” of the participants should have been from Russia or Belarus. This time, exactly half of the 4 teams are from Russia, so there is no “more” than half.
    The sports law allows athletes or clubs to participate in international tournaments and compete against teams from Russia, as long as they are not hosted in Latvia (by analogy, we can think of Istanbul clubs in the Euroleague, which are not allowed to play against the Tel Aviv club in Turkey and thus such a Euroleague match took place in Riga).

    Player’s employment contract?

    No matter what the laws say and what society says about any of the choices, the most specific criteria for each athlete to receive a salary are written in their employment contracts.

    Bertans’ contract with the club most likely stipulates the criteria under which the player will be able to receive his salary.

    Usually, athletes are obliged to participate in all matches, if health permits. It is without doubt also the same that all is written in the contract, that, as deciding not to start with a unilateral decision – normal clubs will not have such leeway, even for the biggest superstars.

    This can have serious consequences for the player.

    The importance of the sequence of events

    Secondly, it is important to evaluate the dates, or the sequence of events: Eurobasket will take place from 27.08 to 14.09. The tournament in Serbia will be on 24-25 September.

    An athlete cannot be legally punished for a probability, but only for an actual fact.

    So, in fact, the criterion of the Sports Law, which could theoretically deny participation in the national team and the tournament in Serbia at the same time, will not be able to apply at all, because the national team matches will be held earlier.

    Bertāns is safe

    Summing up all the conclusions, at least for the duration of the Eurobasket, this national team player appears to be legally safe!

    This is of course not a binding legal advice, as it is based only on publicly available data, without regards to more specific details.

  • Riga municipality gives EUR 200’000 to VEF Riga basketball club in 2024 – deservedly?

    Riga municipality gives EUR 200’000 to VEF Riga basketball club in 2024 – deservedly?

    Rich do as they please – Riga municipality each year assigns significant amounts of public money to different sporting events, large part of that has been given to the Basketball Club VEF Riga, in clear breach of municipality’s own regulations.

    Key Criteria

    Riga municipality considers several criteria when assessing the public money, among them:

    • the achievements of the applicant in the recent years
    • tax debts at the moment of application and moment of concluding the support contract

    VEF Riga qualifies for the public money based on the sporting merit: it was the Latvian basketball champion in 2023/2024.

    However, the tax matter is a whole different story. As of 13.09.2024, according to the state revenue service VEF Riga owes the state significant money in tax debts.

    Serving the formality

    When reading the regulation grammatically, one has to consider only two dates:

    1. when the application was submitted, and

    2. when the contract was signed.

    On 10.06.2024 VEF Riga did not have a tax debt above EUR 150. This is the day when application to Riga municipality was submitted.

    However, just a few days early (on 04 June) the debt was EUR 62’269.88. Coincidence or not, the debt again jumped up to EUR 19’241.57 by end of June. and the club has been in the red for most of the time ever since.

    It could be assumed that the club signed the contract before 23 July, because this is the last day when VEF Riga did not have a tax debt (at the time of this writing on 13.09.2024).

    Was it a well planned strategy or just a coincidence?

    Is it a good governance for the municipality to completely ignore that the tax money is handed out to a private entity with regular tax debts, except for 2 periods* in the year?

    One of the most convenient ways to see the current tax debt of the club is through this link: https://company.lursoft.lv/en/basketbola-klubs-vef-riga/40008115274

    *(due to the tax system practicalities in Latvia, tax payments are calculated on specific dates and apply to specific periods)

  • Ban in the FK Liepāja footballer’s racism case: term reduced

    Ban in the FK Liepāja footballer’s racism case: term reduced

    It was announced that Latvian Football Federation disqualified a footballer earlier in 2024 for an ethical misconduct.

    Apparently, the player had submitted an appeal (or a simple request?) against the 3-month ban, which was satisfied, to reduce the forced idle time to 2 months.

    The news were reported by LFF, with a significant note in the final paragraph…

    “Vienlaikus Ētikas komiteja atgādina, ka atkārtotu rasistisku izpausmju gadījumos draud bargākas sankcijas, ieskaitot arī mūža diskvalifikāciju.”

    Translation: At the same time, the Ethics Committee reminds that in cases of repeated racist expressions, there is a threat of harsher sanctions, including lifetime disqualification.

    The initial link to the LFF’s press release was posted to Twitter / X on 2 May 2024.

    The direct link to the release: https://lff.lv/zinas/17533/etikas-komiteja-samazina-e-tidenbergam-pieskirto-diskvalifikaciju

    The reduced ban also caught some attention by sports news media in Latvia, specifically noting that the ex-captain of the team is expected to return in game-action ASAP:

    The initial story by us was reported as in this post: https://legalsport.eu/first-racism-related-disqualification-in-2024-in-latvian-football/

    First racism related disqualification in 2024 in Latvian football

    As it can be seen, the essence most likely turns around the word “slave”. As well, usage of “donut country” might be classified as racially oriented language. The player likely has admitted that this was the case, claimed to have been regretted it.

    The reasoning as to how wide any usage of words can be considered as racial, remains unclear, therefore it is strongly recommended to footballers not to use any derogatory words that might be perceived as racial.

    It is important not only what an ethical commission considers is racial and constitutes a case of racism, but also how the addressee of the statements perceives the received messages. I.e., the offended basketball player had all the rights to feel that the personal attack was very much driven due to the racial prejudices by the FK Liepāja’s footballer.

  • First racism related disqualification in 2024 in Latvian football

    First racism related disqualification in 2024 in Latvian football

    A 3 month ban to a footballer who apparently had engaged in unethical actions – after a local league player had sent racially offensive messages to a basketball player and the matter became public, Latvian Football federation has decided to sanction the footballer for ethical matter.

    Latvian Federation bans footballer for unethical statements

    The original announcement of LFF only refers to unethical behaviour being the reason, without explaining the details. However, it is believed by the Latvian media that a recent event in relation to the same footballer is the cause for such action by the federation.

    The summary of decision of LFF reads:

    The Ethical Committee of the Latvian Football Federation (LFF), after examining the case materials, has disqualified FK “Liepāja” player Eduards Tīdenberg from participating in all competitions organized by the LFF for three months.
    The disqualification takes effect from tomorrow, March 9th, and is valid until June 8th.
    This punishment was applied for the unethical statements of the football player, which are in contradiction with the LFF Code of Ethics.

    08 March 2024 announcement by LFF – https://lff.lv/zinas/17414/eduardam-tidenbergam-pieskirta-tris-menesu-diskvalifikacija/

    The initial announcement of investigation leaves little doubt as to the event in consideration, as reported by media:

    Evans, who was born in the United States, posted a fading message [story] on the social networking site Instagram on Saturday, showing Tiedenberg’s correspondence with him. In it, the football player called the basketball players of this national team slaves and shamed them as representatives of the “totalizator country”, he also wished them to “burn in hell”*

    Media summarising what has happened – https://jauns.lv/raksts/sports/596099-futbola-federacijas-etikas-komisija-vertes-eduarda-tidenberga-rasistiskos-apvainojumus-gvinejas-izlases-basketbolistam

    * the footballer had originally written “fire in hell”, which might be understood as intentional or erroneous use of words, which might be direct translation of words form Latvian or Russian, as translated and referred to by the media in above excerpt

    The reported racism by the Latvian footballer?

    Racism has been very sensitive topic in 2023, with 2 formal investigations finding that at least on paper “racism in Latvian football does not exist”.

    An unexpected and unlikely screenshot in twitter was leaked:

    The player published an instagram story, implicitly confirming that the screenshot can be perceived as real, and apologising. Also teammates and the club carried out certain activities to help the colleague.

    Media reactions

    Important context to the ban was given by the media: there had been no doubt that the ban was related to the racial offence:

    • https://news.inbox.lv/14wdi1a-tidenbergs-par-rupjibam-gvinejas-basketbolistam-diskvalificets-uz-gandriz-pusi-sezonas?language=lv
    • https://jauns.lv/raksts/sports/597722-liepajas-futbolists-tidenbergs-lidz-junijam-diskvalificets-par-rasistiskiem-izteikumiem

    Could it be something else

    There hadn’t been any other investigation by the ethical committee at that time, neither in relation to the same footballer.

    We inform you that the published information about the actions and statements of Latvian football player Eduards Tīdenbergs has come to the attention of the LFF Ethics Committee. The committee will review this situation shortly.

    LFF announcement on 25 Feb 2024 through Twitter (X)

    Any doubts?

    1. Were the messages sent

    (a) simply unethical, as LFF Ethics committee concluded,

    or

    (b) is it more significantly a racism case?

    2. Is a screenshot of correspondence from a social media account (not verified – without the famous blue “check” mark) enough to disqualify an athlete? We have to consider, of course, that the teammates and the club implicitly admitted the account belongs to the guy, and he had had effective control over the account at all times. Had he disputed the ownership of the account, might have saved half of season’s worth. Could he?

    3. Are we still in the land of “no racism exists in Latvian football” (or even Latvian sports overall), or we are safe to assume that the media classifications are enough to move on from that statement? The official decision does not specify this nuance.