Zusammenfassung

Establishing rules lies at the heart of sport. Furthermore, it can be said that legal order allows only such sporting activity that is carried out according to defined rules. This is mostly followed by foundation of associations and organisations dedicated to particular sport. Acknowledging sport by the public authorities as a space suitable for autonomous arrangement of sports organisations gives special importance to sports rules. However, in order to have autonomy of sports organisations complementary to the role of public authority in the area of sport, it must be grounded in the principles of democracy, solidarity and good management in sport keeping sport independent of any political or economic manipulation including excessive commercialisation. Since contemporary sport is dominantly based on pyramidal structure or federal system based upon recognised sports associations (federations) organised at national and international level by the principle „one sport – one association“, it is quite understandable that sports rules adopted by sports association ranked at international level on the top of the pyramid have monopolistic position as a support for autonomous functioning of whole system of particular sport, as well as considerable limiting factor in making autonomous decisions at lower levels of sports organising. Sports associations use sports rules often followed by serious sanctions to preserve their dominant status. In his paper, the author considers legal nature and legal enforceability of international sports rules at national level for sports organisations, public authorities, as well as judiciary. The author particularly points out to the problem of so-called dynamic addressing to sports rules of international sports associations through statutory provisions of national and lower sports associations and the position of German case-law on impossibility of such way to provide legal obligatoriness of international sports rules at the national level.