Law Reform in Sport

What is the impact of law reform in sport
Law reform has had a significant impact on sport. Law reform can be viewed as processed of amending existing laws and recommending or introducting changes to legislation, usually aiming to improve justice or efficiency. This can be seen through concepts of fariness to all particiapnts and competitors, female participation in sport, drugs in sport and threats to integrity in professional sport.
The significant impact law reform act has had on sport can be seen in relation to fairness to participants and competitors.   Laws passed such as Anti Discrimination Act 1977 and Racial Discrimination Act 1975 reflect changing social values and also heavily imacted on the fairness to sporting athletes. The change that this legislation brought can be seen through the increase in AFL athletes at an elite level which increased from 23 in 1980 compared with the 156 of 2013. Therefore it is ecident that law reform has had a significant impact on sport. The eatock vs bolt case 2011 where Andrew bolt A columnist was charged with racially vilifying indigenous players, shows greater equality and fairness for athletes both on and off the sporting ground. Therefore the introduction of law reforms like the racial discrimination act and anti discrimination act have had a significant impact on sport.

Another impact law reform has had regarding sport is the female participation in male dominated sport.   The sex discrimination act 1984 is law reform that has an impact on women’s participation in sport. The legal success of Helen Taylors in the taylor and ors vs   Moorabbin saints junior football league (2004) that effectively allowed the participation of girls under 14 in male dominated sport, shows increase in femal participation due to positive law reform.   Furthermore, the daily lifes article “women who lead in male dominated sport’ emphasises the progress made towards female participation in male dominated sport. Thus through law reform,...