Yielding non-transparency in the professional sport depends on civil assosiation
Zdroj: SME, Vojtech JurkovičInterview with Mgr. Jozef Toko, sport´s director – marketing agency P.L.A.Y. Ltd.
JOZEF TOKO (25) has been professionally active in the field of sporting law. He published a legal analysis of the Bosman case.
He is also a director of the Sports agency “P.L.A.Y”. As requested by the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic, J. Toko’s team worked out a concept for professional sport.
Instead of the often endless discussions about creating a Ministry, Slovak sport needs a legislative hygiene. Where to start from?
"Valid law on physical culture (no.288/1997 Collection of Laws) covers the care for physical culture and tasks of the state administration bodies, civil association, but it does not actually deal with the particularities of professional sport.
The Labor Code, which is due to passed on to parliament, has to prepare the background for law within sport. There are two options to consider : Either a special sport law will be created, which would cancel law on physical culture, or an amendment to the law on physical culture would be approved. The important issue is to include matters relating to professional sport in any case. This should define professional sport, sportsmen, and distinguish individual and collective sport."
Our attitude towards officials is still influenced by the practice of state amateurism, when officials were dealing with sportsmen in a way they wanted, actually. The sportsmen usually kept quiet so that they could go and play abroad.
"In many cases, sportsmen sign so called innominative contracts, based on the Code of Civil Law and Nameless Contracts, which is a matter of individual legal relations. Consequently the relationship is not considered to be a Labor-Law one, although according to the context of the legal relations with the club, it is certain that the relationship does have Labor-Law status.
This problem relates mainly to collective sports professionals who are forced to accept the orders of officials and trainers and are dependant on the competition and league programs. According to the present situation, when they sign such contracts based only on the Code of Civil Law, they are not protected by the Labor Code."
When a professional sportsman opens his mouth, his wallet can feel it.
"In practice what is not stated in the contract at the time of signing cannot affect a sportsman’s legal position. However, in Slovakia, clubs commonly abuse this and sportsmen often do not know how to fight against it. Fines for weak performances are regularly reported in the press and are very common but are not rooted in any contract.
In professional contracts it is usually clearly defined, when and under what conditions a sportsman can be fined. These involve situations such as coming late to training, serious disciplinary matters or other specifically stated violations.
Hockey players from Presov have been fined for poor performance, two footballers from Ruzomberok were relegated to the reserve team, and yet according to contracts, fines for weak performance are not legal. A well known case happened at the football club Slovan Bratislava in the autumn of 1999 when the club were knocked out of the European Cup by the Cypriat team Famagusta. Players weren´t paid the extra money they earned for winning the Slovakian league and winning the Slovakian Cup, and that was considered to be a punishment. Decisions like this were contradictory to their contracts, but players have accepted it."
And what would happen if they were against the fine?
"Apparently, they would suffer persecution. Maybe the officials would threaten them with not letting them play and such. Of course it also depends on how strong the player’s position is, whether they take the chance to complain. In comparison with Labor-Law it is illegal for an employer to fine to its employee for a poor performance."
At present, all Slovak professional clubs operate as a civil associations.
"Solving the situation of corporate bodies, such as professional sports clubs, is a major task, that needs to be solved eventually. It is necessary to distinguish between professional sports clubs and sports clubs that have no ambitions to become professional.
According to present legal status even the biggest sport’s clubs, for example Association of sport’s clubs Inter Slovnaft, are at same level as a gardener’s club or 5th league football club. It is an untenable situation. Professional sport is a business, it is a commercial activity. That’s why professional clubs should be a corporation. They should be earning money from marketing, commercials, compensations for player’s development and training.
At the same time there is nothing to stop clubs transforming into commercial organizations, but this does not happen."
It is obvious that we are talking about taxes.
"According to the civil associations player’s revenues are considered revenues that are connected with the basic activity for which they originate. Civil associations consider player’s development and training to be their basic activity . These revenues are tax free. According to the information I have, civil associations do not tax the revenues from player’s transfers, and there is no justification for this. The law is just being avoided. If it was compulsory for the civil associations to transform into corporations, it would prevent this kind of breaking the law.
Also the position of professional clubs would be clearer and ownership relations would become more transparent. A new law on associations which stated that professional sports club cannot be associations should also help to solve this problem."
How can we define a professional sports club?
"It cannot be done according to sports criteria. It is not possible to specify by law that all 1st division league clubs are professional but not 2nd division clubs. The appropriate criteria should be a certain number of professional players, employees, turnover, entrance revenues."
