Criminal Legal Assessment of Harm Caused during Sports Activities in Common Law Countries

The subject of the study is foreign law enforcement practice on bringing athletes to criminal liability for causing harm during sports competitions. In order to determine the acceptable level of violence in sports games and the limits of an athlete’s consent to causing harm, the author examines the approaches of the courts of precedent law countries, namely the UK, Canada and the USA. The concepts of rules of the game and part of the game are analyzed, and their advantages and disadvantages are identified. The experience of foreign countries in holding athletes accountable in contact sports involving physical contact–hockey, football, basketball–is summarized. The problems of finding universal criteria for assessing a player’s actions are revealed, and Canadian judicial practice on this issue is examined in detail. The reasonably foreseeable hazards approach proposed by American legislators and courts is examined. The author comes to the conclusion about the non-systemic and selective nature of criminal prosecutions for sports violence and the dominance of the position of non-interference of criminal law in the field of sports, which corresponds to the principle of autonomous legal regulation of this sphere.

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