The polluter-pays principle applied to sport

Violence and racism unfortunately develop in sport, in Switzerland as well as anywhere else. This first and foremost concerns football and ice hockey but all disciplines can potentially be affected.

In March 2011, the Swiss section of the League against Racism (LICRA) organised a meeting in Lausanne on ’violence, racism and discrimination in sport’. Last year, the Swiss Federal Council adopted a set of rules against violence at sports events and for the implementation of the system Hoogan to list the individuals who commit such acts.

But beyond the criminal aspect, these outbursts involve substantial expenditure for the neighbourhoods and cities that host these events that go wrong (policy fees, damage to property, the environment, not to mention injuries or deaths).

Faced with this growing problem, Neuchâtel State Councillor Jean Studer has recently proposed to make the clubs whose fans create this type of public disorder pay. He suggested that teams who come to play in his canton pay a deposit which is only refunded if the meetings go well.

This proposal, which would be applied in the context of an anti-hooligan cantonal law, poses some legal problems. It is also rejected by the Swiss Football League, which calls for dialogue. But the idea is interesting because it applies the polluter-pays principle to sport.

This principle, adopted by the OECD in 1972, aims to make each economic actor take responsibility for the negative consequences of its activities in order to induce a change in attitude. Athletes and teams with inappropriate behaviour in general are subject to sanctions concerning their sporting activities (competition bans, etc.) and their finances (fines). But this is about making the sports organizations finance the costs they cause themselves and/or a fund for prevention.

Applied to the problem of doping, this principle would entail that the clubs and federations, whose athletes and entourages are caught doping, start financing the fight against this scourge which is very expensive for governments and for the sports movement.

The Movement for Credible Cycling offers the introduction of a penalty points system for the teams affected. The World Anti-Doping Code (Article 12) actually provides for the possibility of such sanctions, but they are not enforced.

To fight against another threat to sport, "trafficking" of young athletes from the South to the North, economist Vladimir Andreff in 2003 at the United Nations’ sport and development conference in Magglingen suggested to introduce a "tax Coubertobin" on transfers of players to be paid by the clubs.

For sports results proved fake, one could imagine that the broadcasting rights or sponsorships paid to sports organizations are partly reimbursed to television channels and sponsors. For cases of corruption, sports organizations would compensate the injured parties. The Sion 2002 Bid Committee would then have seen its application expenses refunded by the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee.

The state does much to promote (clean) sport. A recent study of IDHEAP shows, for example, that the Swiss Confederation now spends four times more on sport per capita than in 1970, while the Swiss GDP since then has been multiplied by 1.8. This support along with local and regional initiatives have enabled the development of sport as an economic sector in its own right that has substantial benefits in terms of health, education, social inclusion, territorial development, etc.

You just need to ensure that the full economic cost of the sport is taken properly into account by the sports organizations that directly benefit from its financial repercussions.

This comment was first published in French in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, it has been translated and reprinted here with kind permission from the author.