Sports Liability of Football Clubs for Spectators’ Behavior: Art. 12, Art. 14 of the Code of Sports Justice of the Italian Football Federation (F. I. G. C.) and para. “e” of the Art. 16 (2) of the UEFA Disciplinary Regulations

Abstract

Disciplinary regulations of the national associations are under their discretion and not directly governed by UEFA. The Italian Football Federation approach differs by its own original classification of the inappropriate spectators’ behavior matters. In particularly, Art. 12 of the Code of Sports Justice establishes the liability for introducing in the sport facilities any images, inscriptions, symbols, emblems and other materials that contain insulting, offensive, threatening or inciting violence words and phrases, as well as for chants, shouts and other manifestations of obscene, offensive, threatening or inciting violence acts, while according to Art. 14 the clubs are liable for violent acts of spectators committed inside and around the stadium area (when they are directly related to the spectators’ misbehavior inside the stadium) in case the acts constitute a threat to public safety or a threat of causing serious harm to one or more individuals1. Furthermore, the Code establishes the unique system of mitigating and exempting from liability circumstances. The authors did the research of the sports legal practices of the aforementioned jurisdictions. Thus, it is useful to compare the provisions of both, the Code and UEFA Disciplinary Regulations. The obtained results could be interesting for RFU Disciplinary Regulations since it is constituted mostly by the Russian public legislations.