IRELAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Tim O’Connor, The Bar of Ireland
Irish law in the wider context is very strong on the requirements for fair procedure, and the requirements for natural and Constitutional jus - tice – specifically, the right to put one’s own case and the right for an unbiased assessor – will be implied into any hearings in relation to integrity issues. As an EU jurisdiction, Ireland is naturally affected by the recent developments in sports law in EU law. The possible effects on sports arbitration and especially disciplinary arbitration of Advo - cate General Capeta’s opinion in Royal Football Club Seraing (Case C-600/23) are, at the time of writing, still very much to be seen. 2. Commercial Rights 2.1 Available Sports-Related Rights Rights-holders generally restrict the resale of tickets above face value as part of the terms and conditions of entry into sporting events. Resell - ing tickets at above face value – ticket-touting – was made a criminal offence in 2021. However, there have been no prosecutions to date. Rights- holders have used Norwich Pharmacal orders to prevent the resale of tickets for above face value, and have cancelled tickets sold in this manner outside of the terms and conditions of the tick - ets. There is a general shift to rights-holders in major sports using ticket sales management providers like Ticketmaster to control the sale and resale of tickets for them, with the advan - tages in reduced load on the rights-holders. 2.2 Sponsorship What one must note at the outset is that Ire - land is a smaller market next door to, and very integrated with, the sponsorship behemoth that is the Premier League. The sports sponsorship market is distorted by the way the weight of this
drags attention to itself every bit as much as the subscription sports broadcast market is. That noted, sponsorship of sports is very preva - lent in Ireland, and the range of brands seek - ing sponsorship opportunities is very wide, with prominent examples including banks, insurance companies, telecommunications firms, super - market chains and agrifood industries. Given the prominence of the GAA, and the strong links with local counties in the structure of the GAA, prominent local brands and local teams often link up together, with it being a means for local companies both to engage with their locale and to push their brand to a wider audience on the island. At the next level up, more promi - nent counties, and provincial or representative teams in other sports, often associate with larger brands to push a more top-down or island-wide branding. Stadium naming deals are common and increasingly popular. There is no hard-and-fast rule about who makes the first approach, the rights-holder or the sponsor, but it would generally be done by the commercial departments of the rights-holders reaching out with proposals to potential spon - sors identified by them in advance. The sharing of data as part of the pitch in these contacts would now be taken almost as read; certainly, any sports fan interacting with a team would be well aware of the data processing notices and cookie, notices that follow them as a matter of course, stating that the data can be shared with partners. There is no direct equivalent of the Loi Évin in France, and sponsorship by alcohol manufac - turers occurs. However, this sponsorship is also used to market new products more appropriate
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