Greetings from the President

I am Masayuki Tanamura, Waseda University. Following the 29 Annual General Meeting of the Japan Sports Law Association (“JSLA”) held at Keio University on December 10, 2022, I was honored to be elected as the 11th President/Chairperson of the JSLA, taking over from the former President Kenji Saito.

In 2013, on the recommendation of Professor Michitaro Urakawa (now professor emeritus at Waseda University), Koichiro Mochizuki (lawyer and one of the former presidents), and Professor Hisaaki Shirai (one of the former vice presidents), I became a member of the JSLA and, although a newcomer, I also served as a board of director. Although I was not familiar with sports law at that time, members of the JSLA graciously accepted me to answer irrelevant questions at academic and research meetings, and before I knew it, I was very comfortable with the free-spirited atmosphere of the JSLA, and I ended up staying so long. Compared to other academic associations, I would like to maintain this kind of free and open atmosphere and spiritual climate of the JSLA.

According to the former president Saito, the JSLA was prepared by about 20 supporters when it was founded in 1992, and it seems to have started out as a cozy academic organization. As stated in Article 3 of the Articles of Association, the purpose of the JSLA is to promote the development of sports law and cooperation among researchers, and to establish communication and cooperation with academic societies both in and outside Japan, and it has made various important declarations and proposals, such as holding academic conferences and research sessions in summer, issuing annual journals, enacting the Sport Basic Act, declaring the eradication of violence, and establishing sports rights for children. In addition, over the past 30 years, JSLA has greatly grown and developed into a cooperative academic research organization of the Science Council of Japan, consisting of over 400 members, including researchers involved in sports, practitioners such as lawyers, and people involved in sport organizations.

In particular, the JSLA has made concrete and useful recommendations by delving into basic and important issues in recent sports law in theoretical and practical terms, such as the adjustment of the anti-doping system in Japan, the rights of athletes, sports and gender, the democratic governance of sport organizations, the legal challenges of the Olympic and Paralympics, the implementation of the Sports Basic Act in 10 years, and compensation for accidents in sports. In addition, from the perspective of fostering young researchers, the JSLA has recently made progress in governance and compliance reforms, such as the establishment of incentive awards, and the revision of the Articles of Association and various regulations to ensure transparency and fairness in the governance of the JSLA. JSLA has also made a declaration of diversity and inclusion, and has made positive moves to revitalize the organization and further increase the activities by increasing the ratio of female members and directors. In addition, the JSLA has made efforts to promote international academic exchanges in sports law, not only in collaboration with Asian sports law societies such as the Korean Sports Law Association and the General Administration of Sport of China but also by concluding MOUs with ANZSLA (Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association), SLA (Sports Lawyers Association) and BASL (British Association for Sport and Law).

The Tokyo Games, which were postponed for a year due to the spread of the COVID-19, have unfortunately also been the subject of unprecedented scandals in which a number of people involved have been arrested and prosecuted after a series of revelations about Olympic corruption cases involving massive bribery by a former director of the Organizing Committee regarding the selection of sponsors for the Games, and Olympic bid-rigging cases involving test competitions by former deputy director of the Organizing Committee’s Convention Operations Department and major advertising companies and anti-monopoly negotiations surrounding the Games. As a result, the situation over the bid for the 2030 Winter Olympics and Paralympics Games in Sapporo have already been disturbed. In addition, with regard to clubs in schools, there are urgent issues to be addressed, such as comprehensive guidelines on how clubs should be conducted, reform of clubs in light of the reform in school work, and regional transition of clubs, so that the development of a sports environment in the community can be promoted in a way that the school and the community can collaborate and integrate.

As described above, there are a number of issues in sports, that need to be addressed by the JSLA, including the restructuring of the governance and compliance system for large-scale international and domestic events or organizing committees of such events, the creation of opportunities for sports in diverse entities, the realization of a symbiotic society through sports, the prevention of human rights violations, violence, abuse and harassment in sports, and the prevention of accidents, the promotion of health through sports and a super-aged society, the digitalization, industrialization, the promotion of regional revitalization and community development, the improvement of international high performance, international conflicts such as the situation in Ukraine, sport integrity, the SDGs, and the review of the Sport Basic Act, and the expectations for the JSLA continue to grow.

Therefore, in order to foster sports, to connect together through sports, to give everyone access to sports, to ensure that everyone who plays, watches and supports sports can feel their “fun”, “spontaneity” and “joy” and to maximize the value of sports themselves to wellbeing and the value that sports contribute to the revitalization of society, we would like to work to realize the “rule of law” in sports and to contribute to the creation of culture, society and peace through sports. To this end, the JSLA welcomes individuals with high aspirations and lofty ideals who are highly motivated to create a peaceful, safe and secure organization, society and the world through sports come together and gather their wisdom to work together to make our grand dreams come true.