Aims of disciplinary sanctions for the spectators’ behavior: controversial UEFA practice concerning football clubs

The subject. The objectives of strict club liability for spectators’ behavior are not mentioned in the provisions of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations. Strict liability implies the responsibility of clubs, regardless of the presence of fault for the actions of third parties – their spectators. Therefore, the question of the purpose of sanctions acquires additional actuality: a sanction cannot only have a punitive effect in the absence of the subject’s fault.

The purpose of the study. The variety of sporting sanctions and the wide range of their application creates risks of excessive coercion against football clubs. It is necessary to consider the preventive and deterrent purposes of sports sanctions, without which sports liability is deprived of the sign of certainty for the subjects of sport and turns into the arbitrariness of the soccer authorities.

Methodology. In an attempt to find references to sanctions targets under strict liability we analyzed the available practice of the UEFA bodies from 2013 to 2021 (a massive of several hundred decisions of the UEFA Control, Disciplinary and Ethics Commission, the UEFA Appeals Commission). Due to the dispute resolution system existing in European football our research could not be carried out without referring to the decisions of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for the period 2002-2020.

The main results of research and the field of their application. A serious obstacle to the consistent practice of disputes about the responsibility of clubs for the behavior of spectators is the ambiguity of the terminology used and the doctrinal approaches of law enforcement officers. In decisions we can come across a mention of a preventive effect; preventive and   deterrent   effect;   preventive   and   educational   effect   of   sanctions.   The   study found that the current sports justice’s practice of applying strict liability to football clubs has two main problems. Firstly, the UEFA bodies have not established an understanding of who is the subject of the focus of the sanctions. In the disputes examined, two target audiences for sanctions under strict liability are named: clubs and spectators. Secondly, different disputes have emphasized different goals of sports sanctions. The combined approach has not yet been formulated. We have tried to fix these problems.

Conclusions. The goals of strict liability and applied sports sanctions in the UEFA perimeter should not differ: preventive and deterrent, and only in the last – punitive. The need for an unambiguous choice of the football entity targeted by sports sanctions will be the first step to take into account the set of aims of the sports sanctions applied to clubs: preventive, deterrent and punitive. Despite decades of UEFA practice in the application of strict liability, there is still uncertainty as to how a sanction will have the expected effect on the spectators. Limiting UEFA to private prevention in determining the sanction and its size in club competitions does not fully fulfill the mission of sports justice. Even if the sanctions imposed on clubs under strict liability have not been verified by a UEFA jurisdictional body to take into account a set of objectives, CAS is entitled to carry out such verification. An additional difficulty arises due to the ambiguity of terminology (and ideology) regarding the objectives of sanctions in sports justice’s practice.

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