New dispute resolution service makes first call

A NEWLY-ESTABLISHED dispute resolution service for Irish sport believes controversial cases don’t have to end in the courts, costing prohibitive sums of money.

Just Sport Ireland has issued its first arbitration decision in the dispute involving Basketball Ireland and St Paul’s Basketball Club, Killarney with the entire process costing only €1,500.

The dispute centred on the decision by the Super League Management Board, the body established by Basketball Ireland to administer the annual Superleague competition, not to grant St Paul’s a licence to compete in the 08/09 Super League.

The dispute first went to mediation with JSI. The mediation process failed to produce a negotiated settlement and the matter was referred to arbitration, which upheld the decision of the Super League Men’s Board. The Arbitration Panel held that each party would be responsible for their own costs incurred in connection with the arbitration and the costs of the arbitration totalling less than €1,500 would be split evenly between them.

Said Sarah O’Connor, Registrar of Just Sport Ireland: “We firmly believe there is a need for a specialised fast and cost-effective mechanism for the resolution of sporting disputes other than recourse to the courts.

“No one likes to see disputes in sport but unfortunately the reality is that they do occur and recently there has been an increasing trend to have to the courts in an effort to resolve them.

“We feel that this first decision is a vindication of the need for JSI as an alternative to formal litigation and we are delighted that a final and binding decision was handed down within 10 weeks of first notification of the dispute and that arbitration costs were kept below €1,500.”

Basketball Ireland was one of the first National Governing Bodies of Sport to make provision within its rules for referral to JSI as a mechanism of final appeal in the event that its own internal procedures failed to resolve a dispute. The Irish Hockey Association and Special Olympics Ireland have since followed suit, while a number of other sports such as Irish Gymnastics, Irish Squash, Swim Ireland and the Irish Sailing Association are in the process of adopting JSI.

The arbitration panel for the St Paul’s case was solicitor Liam Keane (also Secretary to the GAA’s DRA), Joe Revington SC and George Spotswood, formerly Discipline Officer to the IRFU.