Law's impact on youth sport: should coaches be ‘concerned about litigation’?

Abstract

Those involved in the coaching of youth sport are experiencing an increasingly bureaucratized regime of protective measures that have the capacity to directly impact on the delivery of activities. Contemporaneously, there have been two decided cases that have imposed liability for negligence on a schoolmaster responsible for team selection, and on a rugby referee. Whilst these cases are confined to their own circumstances and cannot be held to herald a broader liability, there remains the potential for coaches to exhibit concerns about such litigation that have been identified within other professions. This article outlines the contemporary framework for legal liability and the concept of ‘concerns about litigation’ found in other areas, before locating such concerns in existing sports based research. It argues that coaches of youth sport are increasingly likely to be concerned about potential litigation, and that further targeted research, based on existing principles, is needed.

Keywords::

• law
• concerns about litigation
• youth sport
• regulation
• coaching
• risk

Notes

^1. Although boxing is in a somewhat anomalous position with respect to the criminal law on assault that was noted by the House of Lords in R v Brown (Anderson, 2007).