Sport and the European Union: Foreword

Whilst academics have researched the relationship between sport and politics and sport and international relations for some time now, sport as a focus of interest to scholars of European integration is a more recent phenomenon. Research was most obviously stimulated by the far reaching consequences of the Bosman judgement (1995) that related to the free movement between two EU member states of a footballer out of contract with his club. Although Bosman was initially of interest to students of EU law, its wider impact on various aspects of sports governance soon attracted the attention of political scientists and, to a lesser extent, economists and sociologists. In 2001 the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) meeting in Madison (Wisconsin) included a panel on the EU and football which was, I think, the first time that the issue of sport was seriously considered at this biennial conference of the leading international academic organisation for the study of the EU. Sport has also featured at UACES annual conferences, with a round table in 2003 in Newcastle and a panel on professional sport at Zagreb (Croatia) in 2005. In 2007 the EUSA conference in Montreal included two very well attended panels (on EU sports law and on EU football governance) sponsored by Sport&EU the newly established Association for the Study of Sport and the European Union (www.sportandeu.com). In this special issue of the JCER there are contributions from two of the founding members of Sport&EU.